


The Taxman Cometh

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, and now it's definitely not a joke lmao, and so does everyone else very quickly, blame the tfw discord tbh, celestial tax agency catches up with everyone, fantasy tax evasion, flagrant disregard for how tax collection agencies actually work, taako and merle get caught by fantasy IRS, this started as a fucking joke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-06-23 03:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: Every single person in TAZ Balance except for a select few have committed various tax-related crimes and now that's catching up with them





	1. in which Taako and Merle get in trouble (again)

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy this fic about goofs and magical tax evasion
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (this is the tfw discord's fault)

Taako bursts through the swinging doors (installed tonight on a whim, courtesy of Magnus), nearly hitting Merle, carrying a tray laden with various styles of bruschetta. The whole family is there, and then some: all the IPRE (even Lucretia); Kravitz and Angus, although Angus all but lives with them now, when he’s not in the dorms at the most second-rate magic school on Faerun; some of the old BoB members, including Carey, Killian, and Avi (that last already deep in his second glass of wine), and Ren, who is watching Mookie jump all over Magnus with mild concern.

They’re all sprawled around Taako and Kravitz’s expansive living room, Barry and Lup lying on one half of the couch, Carey and Killian taking up the other half, while Magnus lies flat on the floor, providing both a pillow and a gym to Mookie, Lucretia, and Ren. Angus is curled up next to Mavis on the floor nearby, both of them bent over the newest Caleb Cleveland novel, while Kravitz takes bets with Avi on the outcome of Merle and Davenport’s card game. The cats are draped over various warm bodies, most of them on Magnus or Lup, although one loyal skeleton cat is curled up on Kravitz’s shoulder.

“Who wants some hors d'oeuvres?” Taako announces, resting an elbow on Merle’s head.

“Yeah, pass me some of those horse divorce!” Lup hollers from the couch, Barry laughing behind her.

Taako looks down at the plate and then stares at his sister. “What the fuck, Lulu?”

Lucretia laughs like some sort of fantasy anime villain behind her hand.

“Something to add, Lucy?” Taako asks with false sweetness, glaring at her.

“Oh, nothing,” Lucretia says. “It’s just embarrassing for you. I would have thought a real _chef_ would have known it’s pronounced horse divorce.”

“What’s this about horse vore?” Merle asks from underneath Taako’s elbow.

Everyone laughs at Taako’s shriek, as he throws the bruschetta in the air and smacks Merle with the tray. Magnus wiggles to position himself under the falling bruschetta, but Kravitz, through his own traitorous laughter, catches them with a Levitate.

“You’re all heathens!” Taako yells, kicking at the swinging doors behind him. “None of you deserve my food! None!”

Through the continued laughter, and Mookie asking very loudly what vore is, there’s a brisk, business-like knock on the door. Mavis and Angus share an amused glance before Angus stands up to get it. With all the usual commotion, it’s likely none of the actual adults heard it.

Angus reaches the front door, batting through the reaper cloaks and feathered cuirasses and wizard hats, the red and denim and other robes hanging around the door, and opens it to find two ambiguously gendered people standing in front of him, backs straight, dressed in identical sharp black suits and carrying identical black briefcases. The one on the right is carrying a file, but that is the only noticeable difference between them.

“Hello sirs and/or ma’ams,” Angus chirps brightly, wondering what law Taako’s violated this time.

“Is this the current residence of Taako Taaco?” the one on the right asks briskly.

“Yes,” Angus says carefully, feeling Mavis at his back. “What do you need him for?”

“Is Merle Hitower Highchurch, current designation Earl, currently at this residence?”

“What’s this about?” Mavis puts in, pushing forward at the mention of her step-father.

The two people nod to each other once, sharply, and push past Angus and Mavis, seemingly without effort.

“Hey!” Angus yelps, turning and running back towards the living room. “Sir, there are people in suits here to see you and Merle!”

“What law did you break this time, guys?” Magnus asks from the floor, craning his head up as the two people enter the already crowded living room.

At that, Magnus sits up, dislodging Mookie and the cats. The animals, upon seeing the agents, hiss as one and dart away, into the kitchen or up the stairs, vanishing in the space between breaths. Everyone in the room straightens even more at that, several pairs of narrowed eyes on the two besuited intruders to the home. Kravitz has already summoned his scythe, although everyone else is mostly confused.

“Queen have mercy,” he mutters, loud enough in the silence that everyone can hear him.

“Pumpkin, what have we said about letting solicitors in?” Taako says, pulling his wand out of his bun and glancing at his husband in concern.

“Taako, Merle, don’t talk to them,” Kravitz says sharply. “They shouldn’t be here.”

“You know these fools, Ghost Rider?” Lup asks, pushing off Barry to stand up.

“Unfortunately.”

“Taako Taaco,” the one on the left says. “Merle Hitower Highchurch.”

The one on the right snaps open the thick folder in their hands. “I am Agent Green,” they say briskly.

“And I am Agent Day,” the other continues.

They both ignore Lucretia’s and Barry’s surprised coughs into their wine.

“We are senior agents from the Celestial Tax Collection Agency-” Agent Green says.

“Also known as FIRS,” Agent Day continues.

“And we are here to collect both you, Mr. Taaco, and you, Mr. Highchurch, for the following list of offenses.” Agent Green reads off the file as Davenport moves protectively in front of Merle, and everyone else in the room closes ranks before the agents. “Mr. Taaco: you have four hundred and twenty one--”

“Damn it,” Taako mutters, although his grip on his wand has tightened.

“Four hundred and twenty one counts of fantasy tax evasion, eighteen counts of improperly filed taxes, and thirty one counts of identity theft, presenting yourself as one ‘Angus McDonald’ on all thirty one occasions.”

“Sir,” Angus says, rolling his eyes.

“This is nothing, boychik,” Taako assures him, although Kravitz is slowly twirling his scythe, fully in front of Taako by now. “None of it’ll stick.”

“Mr. Highchurch--” Agent Green continues.

“That’s Earl to you,” Merle calls from behind Davenport.

“Earl Highchurch,” Agent Green corrects without a single change in expression. “You have nineteen counts of failing to properly claim your dependents-”

“Merle!” comes Mavis’s exasperated voice, although she still can’t get past the agents blocking the doorway. “I told you to claim us!”

“I’ve never done taxes in my life,” Merle laughs. “I’m a beach dwarf! We don’t have to pay them!”

“Incorrect!” Agent Day booms, loud enough to shake back Lup and Angus, who are closest to the agents. They calm when Agent Green glances at them.

“You are also guilty of sheltering a known tax evader and allowing said tax evader to pass on without paying his proper dues.”

“What?” Merle says. “That one doesn’t sound familiar.”

“One John Ocras.”

“Oh, was that his last name?”

“A moment,” Lucretia calls, slipping into her Madam Director gravitas as easily as she would pull on an old, well-worn coat. “You would not have jurisdiction over John and the rest of the Hunger, as they did not originate in this plane.”

“No,” Agent Green acknowledges. “But they ended here. That places John Ocras, otherwise known as The Hunger, solely in our jurisdiction. Concurrently, all the tax burdens of all the planes it consumed are the responsibility of John Ocras. Because he was then allowed to pass on through the actions of one Merle Hitower Highchurch, that places the Earl in violation of those laws that prevent sheltering of a known tax evader.” Agent Green snaps the folder shut authoritatively and looks up, finding Merle and Taako despite them each being behind at least ten other people.

“You’re coming with us,” Agent Day says.

A chorus greets that statement, mostly in the vein of “I think the fuck not” and assorted similar sentiments. Kravitz cuts through it all with a sharp “No.” and a sharper scythe, advancing to the front of the group, skeletal and blazing.

“You have no power here,” he declares, and somehow he’s wearing his cloak again. It spreads out behind him in a wind no one else can feel, shadows dark as night itself gathering at his sides. Barry and Lup nod to each other and take their reaper-lich forms, cloaking themselves in red. Lup, her hair and hands on fire, a violent light glowing in her eyes, and Barry, darker, colder, whips of red electricity crackling off him, join ranks behind Kravitz.

They three stand arrayed against the two agents, who look insultingly calm, while Angus and Mavis scamper behind the three reapers. Magnus is stretched to his full height, Railsplitter in one hand and Chance Lance in the other, while Lucretia stands by his side, wand at the ready. Ren is pulling the children away, although her wand is out too, while Davenport’s hands shimmer, his eyes hard and sharp as he prepares his spells.

Behind it all, Merle and Taako exchange glances.

“Why don’t you pay your taxes, old man?” Taako asks, pulling his hair out of his face.

Merle shrugs. “Why’d ya pretend to be the kid anyway, pointy hat?”

“Thought it’d be funny.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“The power and protection of the Raven Queen, Istus the Lady of Fate, and Pan the Grower, extends over these two souls,” Kravitz continues. “You will not touch them.”

Agent Green and Agent Day exchange a glance and shrug.

“Visiting hours to the prison will be extended to each of you through each of your respective deities,” Agent Day recites. “Generally, Monday through Friday, 2-3pm, no visitors on Thursdays.”

“You’re not touching my brother!” Lup snarls.

“Or our weird dad!” Magnus adds from behind her.

The agents exchange another glance, more tired than the last, and then they disappear.

And several things happen at once.

They reappear immediately behind Taako and Merle, Agent Green with their hand on Taako’s shoulder, Agent Day with their hand on Merle’s. Taako yelps and attempts to cast Magic Missile, while Merle thwacks his soulwood arm against the agent’s iron grip.

Magnus yells too and hurls both his axe and his lance towards the agents.

Lup screams, launching a powerful Fireball directly at Agent Green’s face.

Kravitz growls, flying towards them at impossible speed.

Lucretia casts a wave of force, shaping it around Merle and aiming for Agent Day.

Davenport grunts sharply, daggers already thrown with pinpoint accuracy at Agent Day.

Angus scrambles for his crossbow, aiming it with surprisingly steady hands.

Mavis and Mookie scream as Ren pulls them away, her wand out protectively.

Killian throws Carey, the latter with her daggers out, ready to hit both agents at once.

The agents, holding onto Taako and Merle both, simply sigh.

And all four of them disappear.


	2. in which many people panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone left on Faerun panics, Taako and Merle get in a... fight? If you can call it that.

“Taako!” Lup howls, anguished, as her brother disappears.

“Merle!” Davenport yells, the loudest they’ve heard their captain cry since before Faerun, before the relics and the wars and the forgetting.

Through it all, Lup’s scream and Davenport’s cry, Mavis, Mookie, and Angus all shouting in fear, Magnus roaring in rage, Lucretia scrabbling in horror for anything that will tell them where her family went this time, comes Kravitz, skeletal and blazing.

“THIS WILL NOT STAND!” he roars, and tears open a portal with a mighty swing of his scythe. He strides through it, not waiting for Barry or Lup, and vanishes.

“What the fuck is going on?” Magnus yells.

Instinctively, they all turn and look at Lucretia and Angus, standing side by side.

“What?” she asks defensively. “I don’t know who they were!”

“Celestial tax agents, they said?” Angus says, flipping open a fresh notebook. “Mr. Kravitz seemed to know them, so that might be a lead?”

“Our tax records are fine,” Lucretia says, confused. “I’ve arranged to do all of ours through the Bureau for years. I can call up Brad and Leon, they’re the ones who file everything— what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Did you say Leon?” Magnus asks.

Angus, at Lucretia’s side, is slowly shaking his head.

“Leon  _hates_ Taako,” Carey joins in. “If he’s signed up through the Bureau system still, well…”

“He could have been fucking up Taako’s taxes for years,” Killian says.

“Well fuck,” Avi adds eloquently.

“I’ve told Merle over and over to claim us as dependents,” Mavis groans.

“What’s a dependent?” Mookie asks, having at this point clambered onto Ren’s back. The drow, more concerned with the disappearance of her boss and friend, and said boss-friend’s weird father figure, is actually letting him.

“It doesn’t matter _who_ they are,” Lup cuts through Mavis attempting to explain the basics of taxation to her younger brother. Barry is already flipping through a book he summoned from their office in the Astral Plane, showing a diagram to Angus. “We just need to know _where_ they are so we can fuck them up, right babe?”

“Might be easier said than done, Lup,” Barry says, showing her the same diagram. Lup quiets, then, her brilliant mind catching up to her anger as she absorbs the information from whatever book Barry has.

“What is it?” Lucretia asks finally, when it’s clear the two reapers and Angus aren’t going to share without prompting. “Who were those two?”

“Exactly who they said they were,” Barry says grimly. “Fantasy IRS, or FIRS, usually. They operate independently from the rest of the Celestial Plane, and they can rule for jurisdiction over all matters relating to interdimensional taxes, filing permits, questions of identity, property management,” he snaps the book shut. “All that sort of thing. They broker deals, sometimes, if they deem it worthy of being fully documented. Everyone else in the Celestial Plane _hates_ them.”

“Why are they only g-getting involved now?” Davenport demands. “We saved the multiverse y-years ago, at this point.”

“Paperwork,” Lup growls, the book in Barry’s hands bursting into flames. He yelps, until Angus douses it with a quick Produce Water.

“Yeah,” he says, shaking off the book and flipping it through a tiny portal back to the Astral Plane. “They’re like the ultimate bureaucracy.”

“How the fuck are we going to get to them, then?” Magnus asks, swinging Railsplitter a few times and nearly taking Avi’s head off, until Killian catches it with a stern look.

There’s silence, for a few moments, until Angus pipes up.

“They said there were visiting hours?” he suggests.

This prompts another outburst, Magnus yelling “Nope! Nope! No way!” and other such variations, Barry running through all the legalese he picked up over the course of a century and a half, Lup loudly threatening to burn the entire place down, the rest of the inhabitants of the Celestial Plane be damned, Lucretia and Davenport running through a list of where exactly Leon ended up after Story and Song, and then Mookie just adding to the general chaos by yelling wordlessly and with great delight and volume.

A rip in reality tears through both the middle of the room and the noise, Kravitz stalking through it, still skeletal.

“What’d she say?” Lup demands, not even bothering with one of her usual nicknames.

“She has no jurisdiction,” Kravitz growls. “She gave me the list of visiting hours.”

“Fuck that!” Magnus pronounces, over everyone’s cries of protest. “Let’s just go get em!”

“Magnus Burnsides,” Kravitz says, the room growing dark around him as he turns flaming red eyes towards the fighter. “Are you suggesting I, a reaper and avatar of The Raven Queen, along with you, those individuals who have broken the laws of fate, life and death, dare to stage a breakout of two highly sought after prisoners from a celestial prison?”

“Uh, yeah. Duh.”

Kravitz returns to his flesh form in a flash, scythe still in hand. “Good. Let’s plan.”

*

_Somewhere in the Celestial Plane_

 

Taako wakes up on a warm stone floor, wand gone and apron askew. He sits up with a groan, more from habit than pain.

Actually, nothing really _hurts_ , per se. He’s just lying on a floor somewhere, but nothing seems to be _wrong_ , except for the exceptionally hairy dwarf lying next to him, still snoring. He squints for a second before remembering that it’s Merle, and wrinkles his nose.

He kicks the dwarf awake as he stands up, examining the room they’re in. To a soundtrack of Merle’s spluttering, he finds that the room is much the same as the floor: that same soft creamy stone, weirdly warm, with no doors, windows, or other methods of escape seemingly available.

“What happened?” Merle groans from the floor, rubbing at his head and dislodging more leaves and dirt than is sanitary. Taako shudders and mentally revises his kitchen rules to No and Merle.

“Remember those cats in the suits?” he says, patting his pockets for his wand. “That’s all I know. What the fuck, they cleaned me out!”

“You’re not due for a colonoscopy for another hundred years, probably.”

“Gross!” Taako howls. “No! No! I’m not hearing that! You fucking stop it! I’m leaving the room! I’ve left the room!”

“You can’t,” Merle points out amiably. “No doors or windows.”

“Fuckin watch me.”

He doesn’t end up having to do anything, because the wall directly in front of them, without pomp or circumstance, just… isn’t there, anymore. Light pours through, not sunlight exactly but not firelight either.

“Where’s your wand?” Merle asks as he stands, cracking the knuckles on his flesh hand (the knuckles on his soulwood hand don’t crack so much as creak).

“I told you,” Taako grumbles, eyeing the opening, beyond which seems to be more of the weird pale stone, and not much else. Just open space. “It’s gone. So’s my pudding, Angus’s tertiary notebook, 40 gold, and _everything else that was in my pockets_.”

“So that’s what you meant by cleaned out.”

“Yeah, no shit!”

“Obviously,” Merle says, smirking at Taako’s shriek. Unconcerned, the dwarf wanders towards the opened wall, smirk shifting into a small smile when the elf hurries to catch up.

“Can’t you do some cleric shit?” Taako says, both of them halting at the same time on the edge of their little room.

“No Extreme Teen Bible,” Merle points out. “They took all my junk too.”

“You don’t need an arcane focus!”

“True,” Merle hums. He shakes out his hands, flesh and soulwood, feeling the tingle of magic coursing through his body. It’s stronger here, wherever they are, than he’s ever felt on Faerun. “We’re in the Celestial Plane,” he remarks thoughtfully.

“Great, call your godly boyfriend or whatever it is you do and get us out of here.”

“It’s more of an open relationship,” Merle says, grinning again when Taako howls and shoves at his shoulder. Unconcerned, he tries to cast Guardian of Faith, calling for the spectral Della Reese. “I cast Guardian of Faith!”

Nothing happens.

“Huh,” he says thoughtfully.

“Why do you always fuckin _announce_ your spells, old man? Where’s your angel anyway?”

“Dunno,” Merle shrugs. He tries Channel Divinity, figuring that Pan must be close, what with them being in the Celestial Plane and all. It’s gotta be more direct than it was talking that treant back in Goldcliff, or any of the other dozens of times he’s called Pan.

Nothing happens.

“Try summoning Garyl,” Merle suggests, looking up at Taako.

“No arcane focus, my man.”

“Try anyway.”

“I’m a pretty, uhhhh, fuckin _baller_ transmutation wizard, but I’m not a goddamn sorcerer!”

“Try it anyway.”

“ _Fuck_ , fine.”

He tries, attempting to focus through his hands after another dirty look at Merle.

Nothing happens.

“What the fuck is going on?”

They both pause, hoping for a voice from above, possibly Jeffandrew, or a younger brother of some sort, to come to their rescue, or at least explain things.

Nothing happens.

“You wanna just…” Taako motions out the lack of wall in front of them.

They shrug at each other and cautiously edge out of the room.

In front of them is a vast open space, with no visible ceiling. The ground is more of that pale stone, with walls of the same material visible far away. It’s almost the size of the quad on the moon base, albeit with no grass or domes.

No dogs either, so that’s one thing this place and the moon base have in common.

There are other people, clumped in small groups, chatting or playing complicated board games with many different kinds of dice. Some are sitting at tables, eating and drinking, and others are sprawled comfortably on the ground. None of them are wearing a uniform, and none of them have weapons or magical items of any kind.

A whole group of Tom Bodetts is in a group together, and they casually wave as Taako and Merle walk past, before returning to their game involving far too much math for Taako to look more closely at.

They reach what seems to be the central area, and Merle points out many other doorways carved out of the rock, leading to passageways as well as what seem to be inn rooms, relatively standard if sparsely decorated.

“Weeeeell, lookie here,” somebody drawls. “If it ain’t the guy who said god was gonna hit us with a train.”

“And the guy who stole my face!” another voice pipes up.

“Oh hey, it’s these guys,” Taako says, leaning on Merle again. “We killed you? Right? What were your names again?”

“Oh, it’s that Yeemick fella, that gerblin, right?” Merle guesses.

“No, no, he looked like Kelsey Grammar.”

“No?” one of the humans standing in front of them says, confused. “We-we’re human? You can see the shark on the back of our jackets?”

“Yeah, check it out!” the smaller one says, turning and thrusting a thumb at his own back, where there is indeed a bedazzled shark, picked out in bright red sequins.

“I mean, Yeemick’s here,” the taller one continues. “He’s decided to take up a path of non-violence though.”

“Hey, something we all go through at one point or another, am I right my man?” Taako laughs, still leaning on Merle.

“It’s us!” the taller human shouts. “It’s us, Jerreeeeee and Little Jerry!” he stops, glancing around for another. “Craigory’s around here somewhere. Craig- hey Craigory! CRAIGORY!”

A distant voice floats over Taako and Merle’s dawning comprehension. “Yeah?”

“Come over here, we gotta hammer on these dorks!”

“I’m playin cards over here!”

“Ohhh now I remember!” Taako says, snapping his fingers and drawing the Hammerheads’ attention back to him. “Didn’t we throw one of you off a cliff?”

“No no, that was Barbara,” Merle corrects.

“You threw Barbara off a cliff?!” Jerreeeeee screeches.

“Oh, yeah,” Taako nods as Merle pats his hip. “Yeah, we did that.”

“Don’t you guys have, like, a boss or something?” Merle asks. “Harvey, or Marvin, or something?”

“His NAME was Maarvey!”

“Killed him too,” Taako says, nodding again. “What, uhhh, what did you guys want?”

“What do we want?” Little Jerry demands. “To beat the shit outta ya, what else?”

They only grow angrier when Taako and Merle laugh in their faces.

“Now, I’m a magic boy,” Taako drawls. “But I’m pretty sure I can take down a guy named, uhhh, _Little Jerry_.”

“And I’m a dwarf,” Merle says proudly.

The rest of them stare at him.

“And uh, he’s an elf?” Jerreeeeee says, pointing at Taako. “And we’re humans?”

“And god’s gonna hit you with a train!” Merle snaps. “A train named Merle!”

He socks Little Jerry in the face, knocking the short human onto his back.

“Aw jeez,” he whines, grabbing at his nose.

“Huh,” Merle says as Jerreeeeee gasps and goes to help his friend. “Solid. Didn’t we kill these guys before?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“That was fast,” Agent Green says from next to Merle, where he definitely was not a moment before.

“AH!”

“Yes,” Agent Green says in response to their simultaneous yell. “Taako Taaco, Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch. The Head will see you now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter twooooooo on my birthday!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	3. in which a plan is made and Taako and Merle are alarmed

_Taako and Kravitz’s house, Faerun_

“Right, so I’m going to retrieve my brother,” Lup announces, for the third time. Only her deep, century-forged love for her husband saves Barry when he grabs her arm, again for the third time. “Let me gooooo, Barold,” she singsongs, glaring at him.

“Lup, c’mon,” Barry says, as patiently as he can. “We have to think this one through. They’re not in immediate danger.”

“They’re in _fantasy tax prison_.”

“Barry’s right,” Kravitz puts in, rubbing at his temples, which are alternately flesh and bone, depending on where he looks.

They’ve sent Team Sweet Flips (plus Avi) to look for Leon, while Ren takes charge of Mookie. Mavis and Angus are deep in conversation about possible defenses for their respective father figures, while Lucretia and Davenport, having forged a tentative alliance for the moment, have gone to retrieve the Bureau’s tax records from the moon base. Magnus is pacing alongside the three reapers, twirling Railsplitter and occasionally making suggestions to the forming plan (these suggestions mostly consist of hitting them really hard until they give Taako and Merle back, and are summarily ignored).

“I don’t _care_ ,” Lup emphasizes. “Taako’s in prison and he shouldn’t be, so I am _going_ to go get him _out_.”

“Lup,” Kravitz says wearily, as Barry pulls his wife back again, wincing when literal fire flares out of her nose. “I want Taako back as much as you do.”

“What about Merle?” Magnus puts in, all faux innocent.

“Uh, yes, Merle too,” Kravitz says, so unconvincingly that Lup, Barry, and Magnus burst into much-needed laughter. “I want Merle back too!” Kravitz says defensively, to increasing laughter. “I wasn’t kidding!”

“We’ll all go,” Barry says, wiping a tear away from his eye.

“Great, do your rippy thing and let’s go!” Magnus says, miming the swing of a scythe.

“Not you, Mags,” Lup says, rising from the table.

“What! But I get like six attacks!”

“We’re reapers,” Kravitz says. “As representatives of the Raven Queen, we have more pull.”

“I have vehicle proficiency!”

“Sorry bud,” Barry says, summoning his scythe along with Lup. “We’ll be back.”

“Where’re yall goin?” Ren asks, from where she’s valiantly distracting not only Mookie but also three of Taako and Kravitz’s cats with a feather on a string.

“To get Taako and Merle back,” Lup announces, while Barry pats a pouting Magnus on the arm. “Ren, you’re the only one I trust to cook outta these dipshits. Let Magnus take over with Merle’s tiny terror and keep the food warm, please? This shouldn’t take us long.”

“Sure thing. Be careful!”

“Uh, sirs and ma’ams?” Agnus says.

“You know it’s Aunt Lup, little man,” Lup says, ruffling his hair.

“Yeah, it’s just,” Angus flips through the notes he’s been making with Mavis. “They might have a point? Taako’s definitely done most of the stuff they said he did, and—”

“And Merle’s probably at the top of their Most Wanted,” Mavis adds.

“We’re gonna get them back,” Kravitz says firmly, bending slightly to give Angus a hug.

“Okay, but,” Angus returns the hug, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “It might be harder than you think?”

“We’ll just see about that,” Lup growls, and she tears a rift in the center of the living room. Barry sees Magnus eyeing the portal and nudges him back as all three of them take their reaper forms again.

“We’ll call, if we want your help,” Kravitz says, looking back and catching Magnus’s eye. “Stay ready.”

Magnus, finally with a job, nods firmly as the rift closes.

*

_The Office of The Head, the Celestial Plane_

 

“Uhhh, are we supposed ta do something?” Merle asks.

They’re both sitting in surprisingly comfortable office chairs in a stylishly decorated waiting room, all bare minimalism black and white, meshing well with the pale stone that seems to make up this entire place. There are a few more chairs, similar to their own, an empty receptionist desk, and two wide double doors, black with white detailing, firmly shut.

The agents had deposited them on these chairs via their strange whirlwind transportation, which Merle claimed left him nauseated. The dwarf then proceeded to throw up into a nearby ceramic trashcan, to Taako’s disgust.

It didn’t mean they were called in to wherever they were supposed to be, so now they’re just sitting there next to a stinking trashcan.

“Hey, wanna see me—”

“Nooooope.”

“But you didn’t even hear what I was gonna say!”

“Nooooooooope.”

Taako is saved from whatever it was Merle was going to do by the door in front of them swinging open on silent hinges. There’s nothing obviously available, although Merle insists he sees the very seams of the universe around them. Taako flaps his apron at the dwarf, wishing he had his hat like a proper wizard, when a single white glove appears in the open doorway.

“Uhhh, hi?” Merle tries, tugging and then yanking on Taako’s arm until he looks.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a hand.”

“Well no shit, Merle! Why is it floating?”

The hand returns Merle’s tentative wave and then beckons them forward.

“Go on,” Merle says, pushing at Taako’s hip.

“No!”

“Come on!”

“Fuck that!”

“Well, it is a hand—”

“Shut up!” Taako shrieks. “Why are you doing this!”

It’s enough to get both of them through the imposing doors, although the hand beckoning them somehow returns Merle’s wink without eyes. Perhaps it was something in the waggle of the fingers.

Fortunately, The Head in the room in front of them is enough of a distraction.

They don’t see it at first until Merle finishes crossing the threshold, but he finally looks up when he runs into Taako’s outstretched arm.

“What’d ya do that fooowhaaaAAAT THE HELL IS THAT?”

“Hello,” the being in front of them says, in the most indescribably neutral of voices.

Taako and Merle take a few more seconds to scream first.

The Head waits patiently.

The Head of the Fantasy IRS is just that: a head. It’s twice the size of Magnus, easily, and consists of a smooth, pale-skinned giant head with unmoving features, the same shade as the stone around them. It might as well be a statue, save for the unnervingly alive eyes and the pair of thick eyebrows that slowly rise the longer the screaming goes on.

Taako abruptly stops screaming and kicks at Merle when he continues, and they take in the rest of their surroundings.

The office is expansive, decorated the same way as the waiting room outside. There are floor to ceiling windows, although there’s not much to see. There’s a single huge desk, curving in an arc around The Head, covered in papers, typewriters, various writing implements, and strange glowing boxes of various sizes and thicknesses. Flying around The Head are a multitude of white gloved hands, the same as the one that waved them in, performing various tasks. Some are reshuffling papers, some are tapping away at the glowing boxes, some are putting away thick files and pulling out new ones, and some are just whizzing around without any obvious purpose. Somehow, they all convey a sense of interest in the elf and the dwarf in front of them.

“So, okay, this is weird,” Taako says bluntly, staring at The Head and twisting one hand in his apron. “What’s your handle, homie?”

“I am The Head,” The Head says calmly.

“Yeah, no kiddin,” Merle says, standing on tiptoes to try and see over the desk. “Where’s the rest of ya?”

“This is all of me,” The Head says, eyebrows raising ever so slightly.

“You’re not gonna do _that_ to us, are you?” Taako asks, gesturing at The Head in general. “Cause, uhh, Taako’s _good_.”

“No,” The Head says. “That is not how we do things here.”

“Where exactly is here, anyway?” Merle says. “We’re in the Celestial Plane, but I can’t contact my buddy Pan! And you know, Pan’s got a temper. People don’t really think he does, but he does, and he’s gonna be _mighty_ unhappy when he finds out you’ve got me and pointy hat in here.”

“Thanks, thanks for that inclusion.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Pan knows you’re here, Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch,” The Head says without opening its mouth. A hand zips in front of it with a piece of paper. Through no outward signal, the hand turns and demonstrates the sigil of Pan decorating the page of close-set type. “And Istus. The same for you as well, Taako Taaco.”

“You forgot the ‘ya know from TV’ part,” Taako mutters. “Okay, fine, the gods know we’re here or whatever. But we’re not _staying_ here, right? Like, just let us go, and then you can go back to high fiving yourself or teleporting or whatever it is you do. Sound good?”

“No,” The Head says, with no visible change in expression or tone. “Agents Green and Day would have read your charges to you. You will be imprisoned here until your sentence is up. You should find the accommodations quite equitable—”

“Horseshit,” Taako and Merle chorus.

The Head soldiers on. “Although no magic is permissible within the grounds of the prison. You will, of course, be provided with lodging and food. The respective deities of your friends and loved ones will provide the aforementioned friends and loved ones with visiting hours.”

“Hoooorseshit,” Taako cuts in. “You can’t just lock us up like this.”

“I can,” The Head says, eyebrows lowering slightly. “Indeed, I have.”

“You gotta have, like, a trial!”

“Due process! Due process!” Merle adds.

“Define due process for me,” The Head says, somehow dry without changing its tone.

“Uhhhhh—”

“We’re not _lawyers_ , bubbeleh,” Taako interjects. “But this has gotta be illegal, right? You can’t just _do_ stuff like this.”

“I can,” The Head says. “As the Fantasy IRS, we have jurisdiction over all violations of tax and property law, as well as most types of fraud.”

“What types of fraud don’t you cover?” Merle asks.

“Underwater fraud.”

“Huh.”

“We allow other deities, like the Raven Queen, to wield judgement as She sees fit. We step in only when no other deity will claim judgement over a particular soul, or souls, as the case may be, and their crimes are too egregious to be settled by agencies in the Prime Material Plane. Or, occasionally, if said soul has passed on, but not committed any—”

“Death crimes,” Taako says.

The Head stares at Taako, unblinking. “Alright,” it says, after an exceedingly uncomfortable pause. “As you say, if the soul has not committed any ‘death crimes’ but still has outstanding offenses under our jurisdiction, we step in.”

“Thus, those dead shark boys ya got down there,” Taako says, nodding vaguely at the windows surrounding them.

“Correct.”

“Just death crimes?” Merle asks.

“We handle all crimes under our jurisdiction,” The Head says. “A full list is available upon request.”

“I’m requesting it!”

The Head doesn’t move, but four of the many, many hands flit to one of the drawers in the curved desk. A fifth opens it and the hands dive in, vanishing from sight. They reappear a few moments later, hoisting a book bound in purple leather, roughly as thick as Merle’s torso. They slowly drift over to him, the hands on the bottom shivering slightly, and drop it at his feet when he doesn’t hold out his arms.

It comes up to his waist.

“As you like,” The Head says. “Your lodging is wherever you wish, provided you do not take another prisoner’s currently occupied space. Meals are listed in the cafeteria. Do you have any other questions?”

“Yes,” Merle says, flicking the book open and flipping through the first few pages with stubby fingers. “Do I have to read this?”

“No.”

“Oh, okay, whew!”

“Yeah, I got a few,” Taako says, narrowing his eyes at The Head. “Can we fight people?”

“You may not do anything that would interfere with another fulfilling their sentence.”

“Soooooooo, yes?”

“You cannot kill another in this place,” The Head says patiently. “Magic is neither permissible nor possible here, so you will be unable to commit the actions against or for others that you are accustomed to committing. So, I suppose, if you must.”

“Uh-huh.” Taako hums, twirling the strings of his apron. “So where’s our stuff?”

“The materials confiscated from you upon your arrival will be returned in the same condition upon your departure.”

“Boy, I hope Ernest doesn’t get too uppity,” Merle mutters.

“Who the fuck is Ernest?” Taako asks, entirely distracted from his next question.

“Ya know, the Nit Picker? The little gnome I got in my pack who hates us.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Or Scuttle Buddy.”

“ _You don’t have_ —” Taako stops, massaging his temples, and turns back to The Head. “Anyway, uhhhh, Head, was it? How long’s our sentence?”

“For you, Taako Taaco?” The Head’s eyebrows lower slightly and a hand rushes up after a few seconds, holding another sheet of paper. “Your sentence is five thousand, four hundred and seventy-five days.”

“What?!”

“And, uhhh, mine?” Merle asks meekly. “Do I get time off for the Earl thing?”

“For you, Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch,” and another hand jumps up with a similar sheet of paper. “Your sentence is twenty thousand—

“What?!” Merle yelps.

“Twenty thousand, eight hundred and five days.”

“I want a lawyer,” Taako snaps.

“No.”

“You’re not allowed to deny me legal representation! It’s my right!”

The Head’s eyebrows lower until just over their unnervingly alive eyes, which are a surprisingly pretty light gray. “This is your sentence,” The Head says, and although the tone is still neutral, the temperature in the room drops several degrees. “It cannot be changed. It cannot be reduced. It cannot be escaped. See an agent if you have any further questions.”

The Head doesn’t move, but between one blink and the next, Taako and Merle are back in the main space. Prisoners still mingle in groups, playing games or talking. The Hammerheads have dispersed, and now Taako and Merle can see the agents appearing and disappearing from the tunnels, rooms, and open spaces. There’s a larger opening, labeled Cafeteria, and not much else. Their fellow prisoners seem to have resigned themselves to incarceration.

“Well,” Taako says, meeting Merle’s eyes. “Fuck!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just gonna have a nest of end notes here huh
> 
> chapter 3, finally up! also a heads-up, these chapters are about to get wildly different vis a vis length. it just be like that sometimes
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	4. in which the reaper squad make a mistake

_Taako and Kravitz’s house, Faerun_

Night has fallen on Faerun, and with it, everyone’s spirits. It’s been a few hours since Kravitz, Lup, and Barry left, and there has been no word. Attempts to call their stones have gone unanswered. Lucretia and Davenport returned from the moon base an hour after they left, the latter extremely displeased that they left without him, but like everyone else, there’s nothing he can do but wait. Team Sweet Flips (plus Avi) called in to report that Leon was no longer at his last known address, but they would be following other leads to try and track the gnome down. But Brad had been living nearby, and would be joining them to help untangle the tax records, if he could, the next day. Ren had taken Mavis and Mookie home, both Ren and Mavis charging Angus with the responsibility to call them the instant anything changed.

“We haven’t heard from them in a while,” Angus says fretfully.

“Cheer up, Ango,” Magnus says, patting him on the head. “They’ll be back.”

“I’m not so sure, Magnus,” Davenport says wearily from where he’s surrounded by files. “Leon fucked up Taako’s taxes pretty good.”

“Merle’s too,” Lucretia adds. “Just for good measure, it looks like.”

“We should start making a plan,” Davenport says sharply.

“Great,” Magnus says. “We go in, I hit them with ol Railsplitter until they’re dead or they let Taako and Merle go. Easy!”

“No,” Davenport says, summoning his patience. “We tried fighting them already. It d-didn’t work, remember?”

“Listen, I’m all about action,” Magnus says.

“We know,” Angus, Lucretia, and Davenport all chorus.

“Could we try calling Istus?” Lucretia suggests.

“Leon d-does worship her,” Davenport says thoughtfully. Magnus and Lucretia both stare at their captain in surprise. “What?”

“He does?” Magnus says. “She never mentioned him!”

“How do you know?” Lucretia asks.

“We were the only two gnomes on the moon base,” Davenport says with a shrug that attempts to hide a decade of humiliation and pain, somewhat successfully. “We t-talked sometimes. W-well, he d-did.”

“Right.” Lucretia looks away again, dark cheeks tinted darker. Angus steps in.

“I knew that too, ma’am,” he says. “The Fantasy Gachapon is a shrine to Istus.”

“Makes sense,” Lucretia says thoughtfully.

“Explains the whole ‘you were already my emissaries’ thing Istus said,” Magnus adds. “But look, I’m just gonna fuckin go, you guys.”

“How are you gonna get there?” Davenport asks. “ _You_ don’t have a reaper scythe.”

“We call Istus,” Magnus says easily. “It’s cool, I got rustic hospitality, she loves me. Everybody loves Magnus.”

“I can think of quite a few people that’s not true for, sir,” Angus says.

“Hey!”

For a moment, the pain and betrayal set aside, Lucretia and Davenport share an amused look. Angus catches it, but simply files it away, smiling.

Lucretia laughs, catching herself with a start. “Let’s wait for Brad to arrive before you call her,” she suggests. “Perhaps Carey and Killian will find Leon, in the meantime. We could use any information about the actual prison we can get.”

“And if anyone could f-find it, it’s Leon and Brad,” Davenport says.

“Did someone call for me?” a pleasant voice asks from the doorway. They look up to find Brad Bradson, laden with several boxes of papers and a fully regrown ponytail, accompanied by Avi. He smiles at them and juggles some boxes to ruffle Angus’s hair. “Hello!”

“We got more records,” Avi pants, dropping his boxes with a thud. “Permits and things, Brad says. He doesn’t know where Leon is though.”

“Regretfully, no,” Brad says, lowering his eyes with a sigh.

“Brad!” Magnus says cheerfully, slapping him on the back. “How’s the ponytail?”

“It’s great, Magnus, and thank you so much for asking,” the orc says with a warm smile. “And how have you been? How’s the dog school going?”

“Oh, it’s great, it’s great. You know how to get to this prison thing?”

“Yes, Avi was telling me about Taako and Merle’s… situation,” Brad says mournfully. “Everyone doing alright? Anyone want to talk about it?”

“No, Brad!” Magnus shouts, which artfully covers Davenport leaning over and asking Lucretia where she found this guy. “We gotta go get em!”

“We _need_ a plan,” Davenport says sternly. “We can’t just rush in.”

“Aw, but that’s my whole thing!”

“Davenport’s right, Magnus,” Lucretia says, gesturing to Brad. “Let me see those files. There might be something in there that could help us.”

“Of course, Mada- um. Lucretia.”

“Ugh,” Magnus groans. “Ango, come throw things at me so I can catch em with the Fletcher’s Mitt. Or maybe we can go get allies. Like that robot!”

“What robot?”

“Ya know, Renee? That smasher robot from Wave Echo Cave!”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s a _great_ idea, sir, nor do I know what you’re talking about—”

With a small pop, a business card appears in the middle of the room.

Everyone glances at everyone else before Lucretia stands up and plucks it from the air. “Visiting hours for Taako Taaco and Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch are Monday through Friday, 2-3pm, no visitors on Thursdays,” she reads. “To visit the Celestial Plane, please rip this business card over a fire composed of one third pine wood, one third yew wood, and one third miscellaneous material. A new business card will be allotted upon your exit.”

“Huh,” Angus says thoughtfully.

“Well, there’s our way in, let’s goooooo!”

“No, Magnus,” Lucretia says patiently. “Let’s wait for the reapers. No point in going there if they’ve been successful.”

“Nope!” he makes a grab for the card. Lucretia sighs and holds it away from him.

“Magnus, let’s sit and talk about this,” Brad says soothingly. “I can make some tea, a nice oolong perhaps?”

Magnus jabs a threatening finger at the bard. “I will chop off your ponytail again, Bradson.”

“Sir!” Angus says, shocked, as Brad deflates.

“Yeah Magnus, that wasn’t cool,” Avi says, putting an arm around Brad.

“No, it’s okay,” Brad says, attempting a brave smile. “I understand emotions might be running high without Taako and Merle.”

“Hey, Lucretia, you don’t need Brad and me, right?” Avi asks. “ _I_ want some tea, and I got some tweaked bard spells that Johann left that I think Brad might find cool. What’d ya say, buddy?”

“That sounds lovely, Avi, thank you.”

Lucretia waves them towards the kitchen while Angus glares at Magnus until he puts down his axe. The fighter turns to find two more sets of accusing eyes, Lucretia and Davenport both also frowning at him.

“What?”

“Leave his ponytail alone, sir,” Agnus says crossly.

“Yeah, what did he do to you?” Davenport asks.

“Whatever,” Magnus says grumpily. “I’m gonna go find the right kinda wood.”

He strides out the back door. Taako and Kravitz’s house is on the edge of Neverwinter, with an expansive backyard that brushes against the edges of the Neverwinter Wood. They watch him go.

“What’s the likelihood that he can actually find the right kind of wood?” Angus asks.

“He knows wood,” Lucretia says with a shrug.

They all instinctively pause, waiting for the usual horrifically sexual joke from Merle. Nothing comes.

“W-well, he’ll be fine,” Davenport says, picking up a random piece of paper. “He’s got proficiencies and all.”

“Right,” Lucretia says, shuffling the papers in her hand and eyeing the business card.

There is silence again, Angus picking through the boxes of papers that Brad brought, the kettle whistling in the kitchen, Avi and Brad talking quietly about a modified bard spell, Lucretia and Davenport carefully not looking at each other as they look through years of records.

The silence is broken by another small pop.

A second business card floats in the center of the room.

Angus grabs it this time. “Visiting hours for Lup Bluejeans Taaco, Barry Taaco Bluejeans nee Highwinter, and Kravitz are Monday through Friday, 2-3pm, no visitors on Thursdays,” he reads, trailing off at the end as he looks up, squinting through the tears filling his eyes. “What happened?”

 

*

_The Office of The Head, The Celestial Plane_

 

Kravitz tears a portal directly into the office of The Head, red eyes flaming in his skeletal head. Lup and Barry back him up, spinning into their standard formation in preparation to face down enemies with the power of the agents.

Nothing happens.

“Huh,” Kravitz says thoughtfully, flames dimming a bit. “I thought—”

“Uhhh, this is a waiting room, Boss,” Barry says,

“And something stinks!” Lup adds. Her eyes zero in on the trashcan desecrated by Merle. “Oh gross!”

“Ew,” Barry adds eloquently.

“Well, we know they were here,” Kravitz says, wheeling to face the double doors. He strides forward and holds his hand out, glowing with the silvery fire of the Raven Queen’s power, ready to blast them open.

The doors, rather anticlimactically, swing open on their own.

All three reapers exchange confused glances and then cautiously walk forward.

This means that none of them notice when Kravitz’s fire flickers out without him.

“Welcome,” The Head says calmly, hands whizzing around with even more papers than usual. “Reaper Kravitz, Reaper Lup Bluejeans Taaco, Reaper Barold Taaco Bluejeans nee Hallwinter.”

 “Haha what the fuck?” Lup says, delighted.

“I’ve never heard of a deity like you,” Barry says, hands searching for a notebook in his reaper-lich cloak.

“Greetings,” Kravitz says, ignoring Lup and Barry, and at the coldness of his voice, they straighten up. “You have taken people who are dear to us. We have come to demand their return.”

The Head’s eyebrows lower ever so slightly. “I see,” it says, entirely neutral. “On whose authority?”

“We are servants of the Raven Queen,” Kravitz says icily. “On Her authority, we demand the return of Taako Taaco and Merle Highchurch—”

“Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch,” The Head corrects smoothly.

Kravitz falters. “What?”

“His proper title and names,” The Head says. “Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch.”

Kravitz glares at The Head, once again ignoring Lup and Barry smothering giggles.

“Yeah, we’re not calling him that,” Lup says, stepping forward. “Just give me my brother and our weird gross dad back, and we’ll be outta your— well, not _hair_ , per se, but you won’t have to worry about us anymore. Sound good?”

“No,” The Head says flatly. “Taako Taaco and Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch have committed crimes against our law. We have jurisdiction. Reaper Kravitz,” and a hand zips over to Kravitz, offering him a paper. “You have spoken to your goddess on this matter. They will serve their sentences.”

“They will not,” Kravitz hisses, and this time Barry notices the lack of silvery fire around his hands as he clenches them. “They saved the multiverse! They will not be imprisoned by _you_.”

“Uhh, Boss?” Barry tries.

“Yeah, I’m with Ghost Rider here,” Lup says, widening her stance. “I’m done playing with these fools.”

“Lup—”

“Give Taako back to me,” Kravitz says sharply.

Barry, ignored, attempts to summon his scythe.

“No,” The Head says calmly.

Nothing happens.

“Give me back my brother!” Lup spits, angry again. She thrusts her hands forward, eyes narrowed, to blow up The Head with flame.

Nothing happens.

“What the _fu_ —” Lup tries again, and again, while Barry sighs and tries to summon his scythe again.

Nothing happens.

The three reapers exchange looks again, Barry concerned, Lup furious, Kravitz confused. Kravitz, shaking his head, attempts to channel the power of the Raven Queen again.

Nothing.

“Anti-magic field,” Barry guesses, turning to The Head and pushing up his glasses. “Tricky, in the Celestial Plane. How’d you pull it off?”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Lup growls, and she leaps onto The Head’s desk. “I don’t need magic to fuck you up. Give me. Back. My brother.”

She’s face to face with The Head, teeth bared, fist drawn back, and the hands are flitting around in a panic, shaking wildly. The Head doesn’t move, save for its eyebrows rising very slowly. After a few moments of this standoff, four of the hands swoop around and grab Lup’s collar, lifting her up off the desk.

“Hey!”

“Lup!” Barry yells.

“Lup Bluejeans Taaco,” The Head says, unconcerned. Three hands are waiting, ready with a file as thick as Barry’s torso. The hands flip it open and hold up the first several pages. “Three hundred and sixty-nine—”

“Nice.”

“Three hundred and sixty-nine counts of fantasy tax evasion, forty-seven counts of improperly filed reaper paperwork, and failure to update and maintain identity paperwork during four decades as a lich,” The Head reads, ignoring Lup kicking at the hands flying around her.

“Fuck off!”

“Improperly filed reaper paperwork?” Kravitz repeats, and pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Lup…”

“Now hold on,” Barry says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “The paperwork thing is under the Raven Queen’s jurisdiction, not yours.”

“Keats didn’t tell me you were misfiling,” Kravitz says to Lup, crossing his arms.

“He and I have an agreement,” Lup says, aiming for airy and almost accomplishing it.

“Have you been making him lemon cake again?”

“There aren’t any lemons in the astral plane, Krav! And it’s his favorite!”

“It should be internal affairs, if anything,” Barry continues, frowning at The Head.

“Barold Taaco Bluejeans nee Hallwinter,” The Head says, and several hands heft up another huge file.

“It’s Barry, actually.”

“One hundred and sixteen counts of fantasy tax evasion, twenty-nine counts of improperly filed reaper paperwork—”

“Yeah, that one’s fair.”

“Failure to update and maintain identity paperwork during four decades as a lich, and one case of identity theft vis a vis one Sildar Hallwinter.”

“Wait a second!” Barry protests as Lup snickers, still held aloft by several hands. “Sildar Hallwinter was one of my old names! It’s not identity theft.”

“Sildar Hallwinter, according to our counterpart on the Celestial Plane of your home world, is another person entirely, albeit one who died long before you were born.”

“What?” Barry says defensively, crossing his arms when Lup and Kravitz both look at him. “My mom liked the name.”

“Marlena didn’t think it through, huh?” Lup cackles. “Didn’t Gregor have any say in it?”

“I doubt she thought a celestial tax agency would ever come after me. Besides,” Barry adds, turning back to The Head. “Shouldn’t that be under the jurisdiction of our home plane anyway?”

“Hey, is at least Greg _fucking_ Grimaldis in here?” Lup demands. “Or Terry?”

“Who is Terry?” Kravitz asks after a moment.

“That nerdlord who stole my fifteen dollar bill? I wanna kick their asses.”

“We discussed extradition,” The Head says patiently. “But ultimately decided that jurisdiction lies with the final planar system, which would be us. And no, neither of those two individuals fall under our jurisdiction, as they remain in their home plane.”

“Why exactly are we under your jurisdiction?” Lup asks tartly. “I think Bird Momma would be in charge of any lichy stuff.”

“Please stop calling Her that,” Kravitz says wearily. “And She does, but not for what The Head is describing. For some _godsforsaken_ reason,” he adds, glaring at The Head. “The organization of the Celestial Plane allows the FIRS final say on matters of legality for souls. Usually they grant jurisdiction, or at least don’t challenge it, unless someone’s _really_ bad.”

“Indeed,” The Head says. “Therefore, Reaper Lup Bluejeans Taaco, and Reaper Barold Taaco Bluejeans—”

“It’s Barry.”

“You will now be detained, with your sentences set in relation to your crimes.”

“What?” all three reapers chorus together.

The Head simply lowers its eyebrows slightly, staring at them as several hands swoop forward and snatch Lup and Barry’s wands, as well as Barry’s notebooks. Several of them suddenly have the contents of their pockets in palm, including an entire small lizard skeleton, presumably from Barry, and a tube of lipstick that matches the shade Lup is wearing. They also include several assorted fire-starting materials, presumably from Lup’s pockets, and one of Barry’s pocket handkerchiefs.

“It’s fine,” Kravitz says desperately, watching Barry and Lup both try and snatch their things back from the hands, with little success. “I’ll just go back to the Raven Queen and She—”

“Reaper Kravitz,” The Head says, interrupting him again.

And Kravitz must be picking up more from his sister-in-law than he thought: “ _Fuck_ , what?”

“Reaper Kravitz,” The Head continues, as yet another hand swoops up with several sheets of paper clutched between its fingers. “Eighty-two counts of identity theft—”

“What?!”

“Woo!” Lup hoots from where she’s now being held upside down by the hands, punching out at them with vicious precision. “Ghost Rider’s a criminal!”

“Including one count of impersonation of a Celestial being, as well as criminal negligence.”

“Of what?” Kravitz demands.

The Head’s eyebrows raise further, almost sardonic. “As your goddess’s chief reaper, you are in part responsible for Her apparent inability to keep her affairs in order.” The eyebrows raise still further. “Ironic for a goddess of life and death, is it not?”

“You don’t get to say that,” Kravitz growls, valiantly ignoring Lup and Barry bursting into laughter. “You might be Celestial yourself, but you don’t talk about _my_ Queen that way—”

“You will be accompanied to the main lodging area, where you may join your friends if you wish,” The Head says, and if were possible for something so neutral, it would sound bored. One of the hands waves and several others flit around Kravitz, and suddenly they’re holding everything that was in his pockets, including his stone, his spare wand, his harmonica, and a signed picture of Taako that he likes to keep on him while on missions. He feels his braids move and reaches his hand back to find that they took his beads too.

“Hey!”

“Nothing that could be used as an arcane focus, I’ll bet,” Barry says thoughtfully. “Sorry boss.”

“Give me back my picture,” Kravitz demands, hands on his hips in an unconscious imitation of Taako.

“He’ll just give you another one,” Lup says with an upside-down shrug. She tenses and whips her neck around, her hair slapping two hands out of the air. “Ha!”

“Don’t we at least get a stone call?” Barry says.

“Your family will be notified, just as with Taako Taaco and Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch,” The Head says. “Reaper Kravitz, as one with seniority, you will be allowed one contact outside the Celestial Plane.”

A hand, somehow seeming harried without features of any kind, skirts around Lup’s radius and offers Kravitz a smooth gray stone, bland and simple.

“Call the Raven Queen,” Barry urges.

“She already probably knows what’s up,” Lup says. “Call Angus and them.”

Kravitz shakes his head at both suggestions and dials a number he’s known for multiple lifetimes. It rings three times, one more than the standard, but he supposes he’s not calling from his usual number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Keats,” Kravitz says, to approving noises from Lup and Barry. They’ve met the Raven Queen’s youthful, ancient coordinator, and are well familiar with how capable he is. “We’ve run into a bit of a situation.”

“Harder than you thought, huh?” Keats says wryly. “Let’s wrangle those square-ass motherfuckers.”

“I’m more rectangular,” The Head says.

“What’s up, Head!” Keats yells cheerfully through the stone. “Should have known you were listening, you son of a bitch!”

“I am neither a son nor do I have a mother.”

“I’ll explain,” Kravitz says, pinching the bridge of his nose again. “But you’re going to have to pass some things along to some folks in the Prime Material Plane.”

They all physically hear Keats crack his knuckles.

“ _Nice_ ,” the long-dead elf says. “Lay it on me.”

 

*

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“This sucks,” Taako whines, for the fourth time since they had been kicked out of The Head’s office. He’s lying dramatically across a picnic table in the main area, which a helpful Bodett had informed them was colloquially called the quad. Merle, combing various twigs and leaves out of his beard, doesn’t even look up.

“Ya said that already,” the dwarf points out. “Just because _you_ got kicked outta two card games by the Bodetts and those teachers for eying their shoes—”

“What teachers?”

“Those ones playin Uno, the ones in here for fraud? Joe, Ariel, Hawthorne, and, uhhh?”

“Rick?”

“Yeah, that guy!”

“Wasn’t that first one in for fantasy copyright infringement or some shit?”

“I dunno, but boy, that Ariel looked like one mean lady.”

“Nice shoes, anyway.”

“But anyway,” Merle presses on. “It don’t mean this place sucks. I kinda like it!”

“Merle fuckin Highchurch, is that you?”

“Aw, shit.”

“Merle, don’t look now,” Taako says, sitting up. “But I think someone duplicated you, put you in a blender and dumped you out again with, may I say, uh? Ma’am? A _killer_ pearl necklace.”

Merle sighs heavily and turns, ignoring Taako’s increasingly delighted grin. “Hi, Aunt Blarg.”

The stocky dwarf grins wide behind a wild black beard, startlingly beautiful hazel eyes glinting as she surveys Merle and Taako. She’s bigger than Merle, the braids in her hair indicating her status as formerly second in command of the Rockseekers. She’s dressed nobly, Rockseeker clan logo emblazoned on her well-fitted black and red tunic. There are well-worn loops at her waist where axes once sat, and the scars over her hairy arms are clearly visible as she cracks her knuckles.

“You look like shit,” she informs Merle bluntly. “What the fuck happened to your arm?”

“I take it back,” Taako says, grinning wider. “Maybe this place ain’t so bad.”

“Aren’t you supposed ta be dead?” Merle asks, crossing his arms.

“I _am_ dead, dirt eater,” Blarg says cheerfully. “Didn’t stop the fantasy feds from comin after me, did it?”

“Yeah, well, good ta see ya, Aunt Blarg, but Taako and I really gotta go—”

“Yeah, this delicate lookin kid is the transmutation wizard from the Story?” Blarg asks, catching Merle as he turns to go and leaning her considerable weight on him. “Ain’t he supposed to be a chef?”

“Uh, I _am_ a chef,” Taako says, still grinning. “I’m Taako, ya’know, from TV? Charmed.”

“Is that why you stayed with my sand-toothed nephew so long?” Aunt Blarg cracks.

“Aunt Blarg…” Merle whines.

“What about my other nephews, huh, Merle,” Blarg asks. “Where’s Gundrun? Woulda thought he’d be in here with me!”

“Kinda blew himself up,” Taako volunteers.

“Yeah, along with a whole town,” Merle grumbles.

“Nice.”

“No, Aunt Blarg!” Merle says. “C’mon! The Rockseekers haven’t been a warrior clan in centuries, on this or my old plane!”

“We still should be, if ya ask me,” Blarg grumbles, but then she brightens again. “What about ol Nundro then? Or Tharden? Bet they keep tryna take the family away from my old sister, huh?”

“Yeah, they’re both dead too,” Merle says.

“Oh, are they?” Taako says. “I don’t even remember who they are.”

“You should, you stole boots from one of em!”

“Cyprus too?” Blarg asks, eyes softening ever so slightly.

“Yeah, but he killed my sister, so like,” Taako shrugs. “No great loss there.”

“Oh, well, sorry about that,” Blarg says gruffly.

“Eh, happens. She got better.”

“Bronze Strongarm’s still doin great though,” Merle volunteers. “I hear he just won an arm wrestling competition in Goldcliff.”

“Huh,” Blarg grunts. “Not too shabby. Have yall been here long?”

Taako and Merle look at each other and shrug. “No?” Taako tries. “Doesn’t feel like it anyway.”

“Well you know, Brock Thickstone and I—”

“Wait, who?” Taako hoots, laughing. “Excuse me?”

“Brock Thickstone? He fought on the prize fighter circuit, you know. Got murdered, a few years back? Tryna raise some chaotic war god or something.”

“Gargles,” Merle says confidently.

“Gargoyle, Gary, something like that?”

“Uh, Garrigos, actually. Well, he and I play poker on what we assume are Tuesdays, but right now he’s workin in the kitchens with that old conjurer bat. It’s almost dinner time!”

“Uhhhh, so?” Taako drawls, twirling the strings of his apron. “Seemed kinda shoehorned in there, don’tcha think?”

“There’s enough time for a tour,” Blarg says, elbowing Merle hard enough to knock him off the table. “That’s why I brought it up.”

“I dunno, Aunt Blarg, do you really wanna show us around?” Merle asks. “Don’t you got, uh, stuff to do?”

“No,” Blarg says, grinning again. “C’mon. I have _all kinds_ of stories about Merle here, when he came back from that beach.”

“It was a fine beach,” Merle grumbles as she waves them towards one of the bigger tunnels, filled with various people coming and going, chatting easily.

“Whatever happened to that girl you thought you were so hot on?” Blarg asks knowingly.

“Hekuba,” Merle says, crossing his arms again. “She’s doin fine. We’re patching things up, you know.”

“I don’t,” Blarg says, punching a passing orc in the arm in friendly greeting. The orc grunts back and continues, ignoring Merle’s surprised glance at Taako. “I’m dead!”

“Did you see that?” Merle whispers in a tone louder than some people’s normal speaking voice.

“See what?” Taako asks, ignoring Blarg’s exposition on the structure of the prison.

“She’s friendly with an orc!” Merle hisses. “I mean, it’s great and all, but Aunt Blarg got killed by orcs, and then that orc kid, what was his name? Kevin?”

“Kurtz?”

“Yeah! The one who made Gundrun go all Blazing Saddles on us.”

“You’ve never seen that movie.”

“But still,” Merle insists, brushing that aside. “Look at it!”

“Cool, your aunt’s not orcist,” Taako shrugs. “She’s reached the bare minimum.”

Merle shrugs, and they tune back in as Blarg is waving an uninterested hand at a complex network of tunnels on their left, filled with agents who all look exceedingly similar to Agents Green and Day.

“Uhh, sorry darling, tuned out,” Taako says. “What’re these tunnels, again?”

“Filing rooms n shit,” Blarg says. “They got files and paperwork for _everyone_ in there. But it’s not nearly as cool as the _break room_.”

“Uh, yeah sure,” Taako says. “Merle!”

“Huh?”

“We gotta break in there and destroy our files!” Taako hisses. “No proof, they can’t hold us here!”

“Ooooh yeah,” Merle says, nodding. “Good idea.”

“Later, later,” Taako mutters, waving a hand in Merle’s face when several agents stare them down. The agents continue staring until they round a curve and find themselves in a large room, not quite as big as the quad but still sizable, filled with pool tables and ski ball and a very large commotion.

There are three figures in the center of the room, all yelling. There are several agents converging on the spot, but Taako cheers when he sees the nearest one get knocked down by a flying punch.

“Hell yeah!” he yells. “That’s my sister!”

All three figures stop yelling and fighting at once as six pairs of eyes zero in on Taako. It is indeed the reapers, Kravitz and Lup breaking away to run at them. Barry follows at a more sedate pace, waving a friendly hello to a very confused Blarg.

Lup’s faster. “Taako!” she says, crashing into her brother with a tight hug. “You’re okay!”

“Uh, yeah, Lulu,” Taako says, gripping her just as tightly. “Uhh, are we doing teary reunions, because Taako didn’t bring waterproof mascara.” He smiles over Lup’s head at Kravitz, and if only Barry is at a proper angle to see the softness of his face, he’s wise enough not to say anything. “Hey, bones.”

“Taako,” Kravitz doesn’t even try to move Lup away, instead engulfing both twins in a hug, resting his forehead against Taako’s, Lup comfortable between them. “Hello, dove.”

“What are you even doing here?” Merle demands. For all his grumpy expression, he’s leaning against Barry’s hip, a casual stance but patting Barry’s arm comfortingly. “What happened when we left?”

“Everyone went, uhh, a little nuts,” Barry chimes in. “Long story short, we, uhhh…”

Blarg draws everyone’s attention by exploding into laughter, sounding roughly like diamonds going through a rusted mulcher. “Oh, I know that look,” she cackles. “Got caught too, didn’t cha?”

“Well…” Lup says, elbowing both Taako and Kravitz until they separate enough for her to wiggle out from between them. “Yeah, a little bit.”

“Aw shit,” Merle says. “Who’s left?”

“Well, Lucretia, Davenport, and Magnus are all still on Faerun with Angus,” Barry says encouragingly, after an uncomfortable pause. “I’m sure they’ll figure out some rational, well thought out way to get us all home.”

Another uncomfortable silence, and awkward looks.

“Excuse me,” Kravitz says, turning to Blarg. “May I ask your name?”

“Blarg Rockseeker,” Blarg says proudly, shaking Kravitz’s proffered hand in a nearly literal bone-crushing grip. “That crusty dwarf with the wooden arm is my sorta-nephew.”

“I see,” Kravitz says, shaking his hand out when she finally releases him.

“Wanna tell her who was responsible for the wooden arm, Krav?” Taako murmurs, grinning at Kravitz’s reddening cheeks.

“Well, Blarg,” Kravitz says, ignoring his husband. “You may want to prepare. There will undoubtedly be more of us coming.”


	5. in which more people attempt a rescue, poorly, and Angus goes for help

_Taako and Kravitz’s house, Faerun_

“Looks like they fucked up,” Davenport pronounces, after carefully examining the second business card.

“Who fucked what?” Magnus hollers from the back door, sounding much more cheerful. He sets down what sounds like a metric ton’s worth of firewood and clumps into the living room, ruffling Angus’s hair and leaving twigs and leaves in his tight curls.

“Mr. Kravitz and Aunt Lup and Uncle Barry,” Angus says, brushing vainly at the debris.

“I don’t think Krav swings that way.”

“Gross, sir!”

“I agree,” Lucretia says, summoning her gravitas in an instant. “Gross.”

“Okay, then what _did_ you mean?”

“They got caught,” Davenport says, showing Magnus the business card from a safe distance.

“Well tits.”

Avi and Brad poke their heads in from the kitchen, Avi confused, Brad already with his professional consoling face on. “How?” Avi asks.

“We don’t know,” Angus says, glaring at the card in Davenport’s hand. “But we—”

He’s interrupted by an all-too familiar ripping sound, as a scythe cleaves through reality. They all turn, hope flaring in Angus’s face, before someone they don’t know steps through. He’s a young elf boy, robed in black, with twinkling brown eyes and a smiling face, expertly twirling a small scythe.

“What’s up?” he says casually, still smiling at the stunned faces greeting him.

“Hello sir,” Angus says, after a heavy pause. “Who are you? Are you from the Raven Queen?”

“Good eye, little man,” Keats says. “Was it the black robe or the scythe that gave it away?”

“The extra-dimensional portal was a pretty good clue, sir. And you have raven feathers in your hair.”

“Nice,” the elf laughs, holding out his fist to Angus. Eyes narrowed, Angus cautiously returns the fist bump, although his other hand still has a firm grip on his wand. “You must be Angus. You’re in charge, right?”

“Whoa!” Magnus interrupts, striding forward. “If anyone’s in charge, it’s me. I’ve got rustic hospitality and everything.”

The elf does not miss the exasperated glances exchanged by everyone else behind Magnus’s back, and his smile widens. “And you must be Magnus.”

“Hail and well met!”

“Sure,” the elf says, twirling his scythe. “ _Man_ , it’s been a while. Does the Prime Material Plane always smell this good?”

“I think,” Davenport says, and Magnus and Lucretia instinctively straighten up at him using his Captain voice. “You should tell us who exactly you are, and what you’re doing here.”

“Captain Davenport,” the elf says, doffing his lack of a hat. The gesture is almost mocking, save for the genuine respect in his eyes. “An honor. And you,” his eyes move to Lucretia. “Must be Lucretia. A pleasure.” He glances at Brad and Avi. “BoB members, right?”

Magnus frowns and swings around Railsplitter, pointing it at the elf. “Who the fuck is this dude?”

“Magnus,” Lucretia begins, settling her hand on his arm.

“I’m not surprised you don’t know,” the elf says, still grinning, inhaling deeply every so often. “You might recognize my name though.” He bows dramatically, materializing a black cape and swirling it around him in the same gesture. “Keats, servant of Her Majesty the Raven Queen.” He straightens, grinning at Lucretia and Magnus going pale. “At your service.”

What follows is silence, stunned on the part of Lucretia and Magnus and confused on the part of everybody else. This doesn’t seem to bother Keats, who merely seems to be delighting in being in the Prime Material Plane again.

Lucretia eventually breaks the silence, her voice heavy with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

“Kravitz called me,” Keats says, clearly enjoying everyone’s surprised reactions. “They got caught by the Head, apparently.”

“We know,” Davenport says, waving the business card.

“Oh, you got visiting hours? Nice.”

“What can you do?” Magnus interrupts. “I’m scrunchin for some punching, let’s go.”

“Well, we got options,” Keats says. He waves a hand and conjures a massive roll of paper, which he unrolls on the living room table. “I was able to find the original schematics for the tax prison, so that might help us plan a prison break.”

“Why don’t we just talk to them?” Lucretia asks.

“Look how well that turned out for the reaper squad,” Avi points out.

“They’ve done something illegal,” Lucretia says. “I haven’t.”

“Are we sure about that?” Davenport asks dryly.

“I’m not too sure about that either, ma’am,” Angus says, glancing at Brad, who shakes his head ruefully.

“I’ve done tons of illegal shit!” Magnus says cheerfully.

“Why not a two-pronged attack?” Angus says, looking over the blueprints. “Magnus, Captain Davenport, and I can sneak in, while Miss Lucretia and Mr. Brad go with Keats to talk to this Head.”

“Now hold on, Ango,” Magnus says, pulling him away from the table. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What?” Angus protests, pushing vainly at the huge hand on his shirt collar. “But I can help! My taxes are fine!”

“No way,” Davenport says firmly. “We can’t risk it.”

Lucretia shrugs, perhaps thinking back to the fact that she hired a ten-year-old to a super-secret incredibly dangerous fake moon based relic-hunting organization. “He might just be a young man, but I’m sure Angus can help.” She stares at him. “From here.”

“Ma’am!”

“But I like your thinking,” Keats interrupts. “But you don’t need me to go talk to the Head, you just need to use one of the visiting cards.” He grins. “I can help with the whole breaking in part. Knowing Lup, I think the kitchens might be a good place to start.”

“How _do_ you know Lup?” Davenport asks.

“She brings me lemon cake sometimes,” Keats says with a dreamy smile. “There are no lemons in the Astral Plane.”

“Well fuck, let’s do this then,” Magnus says, slapping him on the back.

“I’m g-going with Lucretia,” Davenport announces. He ignores the surprised looks, the sharpest coming from Lucretia herself. “You have a better chance with another Bird backing you up,” he says. “And Avi and Brad can stay with Angus.”

“Wait, listen,” Angus says, crossing his arms. “Don’t leave me here, I can help!”

“You can, Angus,” Lucretia says, struggling to avoid patronizing and half succeeding. “But we don’t want to risk you.”

“I get like, six attacks, it’ll be fine, Ango,” Magnus says. “But you should help us plan this out, right? Where are the kitchens?”

Angus sighs, glances over the blueprints, and taps a spot. “They’re right here, in the spot labeled ‘Kitchens’. I can’t help but think this is a poor use of my talents as the world’s greatest detective. Not to mention that I probably have the best taxes out of any of us.”

“You’re like twelve, why are you doing taxes?”

“I’m fifteen, sir,” Angus says, as patiently as he can. “You gave me a carved duck with the number fifteen in it for my birthday. Which was two weeks ago. And I’ve been doing taxes since I was eight.”

“He consulted with us for the Bureau’s taxes, actually,” Brad offers.

“Cool, cool, cool cool cool,” Magnus says, nodding. “Hey uh, raven boy? You ready to go?”

“I’m centuries older than you,” Keats says, amused.

“Shouldn’t you plan it out a little more?” Lucretia tries. Davenport is shuffling through some of the files that Brad and Avi brought, apparently preparing for their own defense.

“We don’t need a lot of planning,” Magnus says. “We go in, punch those agents, grab our family, get out. Easy.”

“That didn’t work out so well last time, bud,” Avi says nervously.

“Yeah, but now I got another powerful elf dude who definitely doesn’t hold anything against any of us,” Magnus says, throwing an arm around Keats’s shoulders. “And I haven’t punched anybody in ages.”

“We all go through droughts, Magnus,” Brad says helpfully.

“Shut up, Brad!”

“Hold on, big guy,” Keats says thoughtfully. “I’ve heard a lot about this boy detective. I wanna get more of his input.”

Angus eyes Keats and then looks down at the blueprints. “How do you even know if these are up to date?”

“I don’t!” Keats says cheerfully. “But hey, the good thing is? They can’t catch me. I was never old enough to pay taxes when I was alive, and I’m part of Internal Affairs with the Raven Queen, so they don’t have jurisdiction.” He leans towards Angus, dropping his voice to a whisper. “And these guys are _all about_ jurisdiction.”

“So what?” Angus asks, tacking on an offhand “Sir?” at the end.

“So I can do this breaking in thing _multiple times_ ,” Keats says brightly. “If it doesn’t work the first time! So long as you have people who want to break in—”

“Everybody we know, pretty much,” Magnus interrupts.

“Then I can get you there. My Queen is letting me keep the scythe until this whole thing is resolved!” Keats’s eyes are shining, and for a moment he seems like the little boy he appears to be, until he looks back at Angus with the centuries in his eyes. “It sucks, for sure,” he says hastily, seeing Angus glaring at him. “But I’m familiar with the way these dudes operate. It’s actually pretty chill, for a prison.”

“That doesn’t help!” Angus snaps. “They’re supposed to be _here_!”

“Hey, Keats,” Magnus says, poking the elf in the shoulder. “Let’s goooooooo.”

Keats shrugs off Magnus’s hand and gestures at the blueprints, watching Angus closely. “Let’s plan this out.”

 

*

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

Meal time in the prison is supremely unsatisfying.

At least to Taako, draped over Kravitz and complaining loudly and regularly about the menu, consisting of fried pickles, fried salad, fried pasta, fried _soup somehow_ , all finished off with fried ice cream. Merle and Aunt Blarg have no such issues, although Aunt Blarg continues to roast Merle, while Lup and Barry are simply debating how exactly the cook was able to fry _soup_.

This goes on, clearly annoying a nearby prisoner, an older man with a bushy beard and clever eyes. He glances at Taako and says to the half-elf sitting next to him, “Hey Charm, at least people in Kepler aren’t this  _annoying_.”

She shrugs and pokes his hand away from her fried pickle. “Still don’t know where that is, Ned. Shell?”

Her partner barely looks up from where they’re poking at the fried soup. “Nope. Hey, famous elf lady?”

Lup looks up. “Hell yeah.”

“You know how they managed to fry soup?”

“We were just talking about that,” Barry says excitedly.

Taako doesn’t notice them getting up, still complaining to an amused Kravitz. Merle hastily follows them, sitting next to the man with the bushy beard.

“Hey, nice beard,” he says.

“Nice beard,” the man says, nodding. “Ned Chicane, friend.”

“Merle Highchurch.”

“Merle _fuckin_ Highchurch,” Blarg calls, having finally noticed her ‘nephew’ moved to another table.

“That’s your middle name too?” Ned asks, delighted.

They start comparing various names they’ve had over the years, Ned having a surprising amount for a human who hadn’t gone through a hundred-year journey without aging, while Blarg, ignored, shakes her head and turns to Taako and Kravitz.

“So, how did you two get together?”

“Oh, you know,” Taako says, steady stream of complaints interrupted. “He was a crystal golem, I was in a spacesuit, can I make this any more obvious?”

“And nothing else happened, yep,” Kravitz says hastily.

“Oh, he tried to kill me, I threatened to tentacle his dick, you know how it goes.”

“I super don’t, actually,” Blarg says, edging away from them. “I’m going to go talk to Brock.”

“Do you have to tell everyone the exact circumstances of how we met?” Kravitz asks, looking down at his husband wearily.

“Yep,” Taako says, poking at one of the pieces of fried lettuce on his plate. Without sitting up, he glances over at Lup and Barry, enthusiastically debating the best way to use fried foods as spell components. “Hey, Lulu!”

“Yeah babe?”

“Wanna stage a culinary revolution and take over the kitchen for ourselves?”

“No revolutions!” Agent Day says from directly behind Taako, where they definitely had not been a moment before.

Taako and Kravitz jump, while everyone else stares at the agent. After a few seconds of silence, Agent Day turns and walks away without a single change in expression. They watch him go, as does everybody else in the cafeteria, and then Lup turns back to Taako.

“I absolutely do.”

“You don’t have magic,” Merle calls as the twins get up.

“They can do magic too?” Ned asks. “I got a friend who can do fire magic! She’s great!”

“If she does evocation than she’s gotta be,” Lup says.

“Who cares?” Taako says, looping an arm around his sister’s shoulders and flipping Merle off in the same movement. “We don’t need magic to fuck up this fried fiend.”

“Proud of yourself?” Lup asks as they stride off towards the kitchen.

“You know it.”

Kravitz exchanges a look with the half elves, Charm and Shell. They’re both raising their eyebrows in the exact same way.

“They’re just like they are in the Story, huh?” Charm asks.

“Even more so,” Kravitz says dryly.

Shell’s face splits into a wide grin. “Then we gotta watch, huh?”

Everyone else in the cafeteria seems to have the same idea, as there’s a whole group gathered by the time Kravitz makes his way to the kitchen window. The Hammerheads are there, as well as Aunt Blarg and all her friends. There are several Bodetts, assorted orcs and humans, a wrestling who looks suspiciously like Death Man, Jerry the gerblin, and a human figure wearing a tattered Fantasy Costco uniform, who glares at Merle.

“Alright, my dudes,” Taako declares, slamming open the swinging kitchen doors, Lup at his side. “It’s time to let the real chefs take over, in the name of Grandpa Tostada!”

“And Aunt Tortilla,” Lup adds, elbowing Taako.

The cook, a stout dwarven woman dipping all manner of things into boiling golden oil with her bare hands, doesn’t even look up. There’s a whole other dwarf in the room, standing uneasily against the wall and also wearing an apron, watching the woman continue to dip things in her frying oil.

“Oh thank the gods,” the male dwarf says. “Brock Thickstone is _out_.”

“Wait, shit, I know you,” Taako exclaims. “You gave Magnus fried unicorn dick!”

“She _what_?” Lup demands, grinning. “Where was I for this?”

“Taking a power nap, perhaps?”

“That is super illegal,” the dwarven women says, still flipping things into the oil. She looks over her shoulder and winks, without stopping what she’s doing. “But I can do that for you, if you’re interested.”

“She gave Magnus fried unicorn dick at the festival on the moon base,” Taako explains. “Uh, I’ve forgotten your name, darling.”

“I’m Petrilda, the fried conjurer!”

“Now hold on,” Kravitz says as Merle, Taako, Lup, and Barry all burst into laughter. He’s slipped into his work accent unintentionally. “How are you conjuring anything? No one can do magic in tax prison.”

“Oh, you know!” Petrilda says, winking again.

“We don’t!”

She just winks and continues to fry whatever pops into her hands.

“Yeah, that’s great there, babe,” Lup says, waving her hands at the dwarf. “But it’s the twins’ time now. Enough fried shit.”

“Oh, you’re nasty!” Petrilda exclaims, and winks yet again. “Almost like my girl back in the Prime Material Plane. But I can fry that up for you too. You have a species preference?”

“Disgusting!” Kravitz shouts over the twins and Barry screaming. “Get out of here!”

“I dunno, maybe we should let her stay,” Merle says, elbowing Ned with a grin. “She’s got a great sense of humor.”

“Shut up, old man!” Taako yells. He turns back to the other offensive dwarf, who continues to grin unsettlingly. “Alright, darling, the only fight I’ve ever lost was with a toy named Bladed Bertha—”

“Patently untrue, but go on,” Lup puts in.

“And I’m not,” Taako shoves at Lup, who laughs. “Going to break that streak.”

“Alright, alright,” Petrilda says with a shrug, still grinning. “I’ll take my frying oil and go. But just call on me, Petrilda the fried conjurer, if you ever want something fried!” She grins and winks her way out the door, pushing her cart through the crowd and out of the cafeteria. After watching her exit, the crowd turns as one back to Taako and Lup, who are looking around the kitchen with a critical eye. Merle and Barry grin, and Merle pokes at Kravitz’s side until the reaper looks down.

“Um, yes, Merle?”

“You ever seen the twins perform?” Merle asks.

“I’ve seen them cook together?”

“You haven’t, boss,” Barry says. “Seem em perform, I mean. Not for a crowd. Sizzle It Up with Taako was good, but.” He shrugs. “Nothin like seein the twins together.”

“Just watch,” Merle advises, leaning his elbow against Kravitz’s hip.

Ned, along with Charm and Shell, have the bright idea to pull over the long tables filling the hall. They quickly assemble makeshift bleachers while agents appear, streaming in from the halls and other openings and possibly just appearing out of thin air. Their faces are bland and neutral, as always, but they ring the outside of the crowd with an undoubtedly menacing air.

“It’s been a while, huh, Koko,” Lup says quietly as they pull ingredients from the shelves and fridges. There’s a surprising variety, although most of it is generic rather than brand name, at best. Lup flips her brother two egg containers, which Taako catches without looking.

“Eh, like that’ll make a difference,” Taako says with a shrug, dancing around his sister’s hands, full of knives and cutting boards. “No magic, but we never needed it, did we, Lulu?”

“No,” Lup says, grinning. “We never did.”

 

*

_Taako and Kravitz’s house, Faerun_

Angus perches on the couch, watching the preparations with a deep frown, too sharp for his young face. Brad is casting buffs on the three Birds, whistling his spells, apparently having forgiven Magnus for the ponytail comment. Avi is holding bundles of paper for Davenport to enchant, evidence for their case, while Lucretia, Magnus, and Keats go over the potential entry points for their scythe-aided assault.

The fire for Davenport and Lucretia is ready in the backyard, and after a few more minutes, Keats pronounces him and Magnus ready to go as well. They have an infiltration plan ready and set up for where they guess their family to be, and Keats assures them, to Angus’s doubt, that his scythe powers will still work once they’re in.

“This one’s special,” he says, patting it fondly. “Even more so than the usual scythes.”

“You should let me go with you,” Angus says when Davenport conjures a flame to light the visiting pyre. “I can help more if I’m there!”

“You’re already helping us a lot, Angus,” Lucretia says gently. “And we all want you to stay safe.”

“Hard to be safe when my whole family is going to end up in fantasy tax prison.”

Davenport laughs. “W-we’ll be okay,” he says, watching the pyre light up. He’s grinning, like he was when he boarded the Starblaster during the fight against the Hunger. “Don’t you worry about us.”

“You know you’re going to talk bureaucracy with a floating Head, right?” Lucretia deadpans, stuffing papers into a folder. “And _not_ going to fight agents with Magnus?”

“Por que no los dos,” Davenport says with a shrug, and Angus grins, remembering the stories Davenport had told about his youth, when he street-raced against gangs in illegally modified wagons.

“We should sync this,” Keats says, already tearing a hole next to the crackling pyre. “We both go through at the same time. Are you ready?”

Davenport grabs a paper that falls from Lucretia’s folder and hands it back to her while smiling reassuringly at Angus. “Ready,” he says.

Lucretia straightens, shrugging on her Madam Director gravitas. “Ready.”

“I’ve been ready, let’s fuckin do this,” Magnus says.

Keats just grins, twirling his scythe.

Angus lifts a half-hearted hand as he watches yet more of his family disappear. He frowns, and then stretches like Magnus taught him, and turns to Brad and Avi, who are watching him with a fair amount of trepidation.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“Where, uh, where are we goin’, bud?” Avi asks nervously.

“The palace,” Angus says, already heading for the front door. “It’s time to enlist some help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope yall enjoyed meeting my version of Keats, he sure as hell is enjoying himself huh
> 
> and yes that IS ned from amnesty, i should update the tags probably
> 
> it just gets more buck wild from here, folks
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	6. in which Magnus rushes in, Lucretia is interrogated, and Angus yells at a lord

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

Keats’s scythe neatly splits through into a small corridor, with blank white stone walls and gray ceilings, curving away out of sight to the right and left.

“Okay, Keats,” Magnus whispers, albeit still at a volume that most people would call very loud. “We gotta use our sneaking skills.”

Keats watches in amusement as Magnus skulks down the hallway to their left, although he has to admit the human does so quite silently. He walks normally, scythe put away for the moment, until he can lean around Magnus to see down the hallway. “What are you looking for?”

“AH!” Magnus yelps, jumping at Keats’s voice in his ear. “Learn that move from your siblings?”

“Oh,” Keats says, very quietly, and Magnus turns to him instantly, stricken.

“I didn’t, I mean, uh—”

“It’s alright,” Keats says, smiling sadly. “I know you were in Wonderland. I’m sorry for what they did.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with it,” Magnus says, rubbing the back of his neck with thirty-five-year-old hands, all ten fingers attached. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No?” Keats asks mildly. “Are you sure?”

Magnus doesn’t have an answer to that, but the elf just shrugs and moves past him, down the still empty corridor. They can hear cheering somewhere in the distance.

“This, uh, doesn’t look like the kitchen?” Magnus says after they walk a bit in silence.

“It’s doesn’t,” Keats agrees, and the smile is back. “Guess the plans weren’t up to date after all, huh? We should still be close, though.”

Magnus nods and readies Railsplitter, shield in hand, as they approach the source of the cheering, still far ahead of them. They glance at each other upon seeing a moving mass of black-suited agents, all of them with their backs to the fighter and the reaper.

“There they are,” Magnus says, gripping Railsplitter more tightly.

“Magnus, wait—”

But Magnus is already rushing forward, taking a decidedly lethal swing at the nearest agent. The agent turns at his footsteps and then Magnus is swinging through empty air, stumbling at the lack of resistance. The agent reappears in front of them, a slight frown creasing their otherwise neutral face. They open their mouth and release an ear-splitting alarm, drawing the attention of two dozen other agents.

“Well tits,” Magnus says, backing up next to Keats.

“Yep,” Keats agrees cheerfully, although he doesn’t seem too bothered. Magnus looks at him, eyebrows raised as the agents advance, and the elf grins. “It’s been a _hell_ of a long time since I was in a fight.”

“Keats,” the agent closest to them says, stopping on a dime as Keats speaks. “Ward of the Raven Queen.”

“That’s me, fuckers,” Keats says brightly, raising his scythe.

“We have no jurisdiction over you,” the agent continues, frowning slightly.

“Nope!”

“We have jurisdiction over Magnus Burnsides,” another agent says, pointing at Magnus, who points his axe right back.

“I have jurisdiction over you!”

“That’s not as impressive sounding as you think,” Keats says. “You gonna fight us or what?”

The agents facing them stare, expressionless again, and Magnus glances at Keats awkwardly.

“Are we supposed to be doing something?”

“Nah,” Keats says, leaning on his scythe. “They’re kind of a hive mind? Gotta let them talk it out a little first. Look at their eyes.”

Magnus does, squinting, and shudders when he sees the way their pupils are slowly rotating in their eyes as the agents talk, if what they’re doing could be called talking. He grips Railsplitter as the agent who spotted them moves closer, pupils returning to stillness.

“Keats, Ward of the Raven Queen,” the agent starts.

“It’s just Keats, my dude.”

“What, no work accent?” Magnus asks.

Keats laughs at that, although the agent cuts him off.

“I am Agent Blink,” the agent says, and gestures to another agent who steps forward. “And this is Agent 182. We have agreed to fight you.”

“And if we win we get my family back?” Magnus says.

The agents exchange a glance. “No,” Agent 182 says. “You will still be taken into custody, Magnus Burnsides—”

“Now, hold on!”

“But Keats, Ward of the Raven Queen, is not under our jurisdiction,” Agent 182 continues. “So he will be allowed to go free.”

“ _Now hold on_ —”

Agent Blink snaps, and everyone involved disappears.

 

*

 

_Visiting Room, The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“Y-you seem nervous,” Davenport observes. He and Lucretia are in the visiting room, where he and Lucretia appeared after they jumped through the pyre. The room is square, made of warm cream-colored stone, with no visible doors or windows. There are a few chairs, one of which Davenport is sitting in, and a single steel table. Lucretia is pacing, flipping through the folder she brought with her.

Lucretia barely spares him a glance, still shuffling through the papers in her hands. “Most of my family is in trouble,” she says, cheeks darkening as she says it. She lifts her chin anyway. “I intend to get them out of it.”

“Just you?”

Her face loses all color. “ _No._  I, I, I didn’t mean—”

“I know w-what you meant,” Davenport sighs, still watching her. They’re not okay, him and Lucretia, not so soon. It’s only been a few years, after all, not nearly enough time for those wounds to approach healing, for those jagged edges to smooth out. But that deep festering anger, the shame and humiliation that burned through him like acid every time he looked at her after Story and Song, well… it’s eased, somewhat, with the salt air and sun and Merle, of course, always his safe port in a storm. He still feels bitterness, always, at the time she stole from him, the way she destroyed so much of who he was for so long, but.

Well, there’s a life after, for him, which is more than he was expecting.

A good life, too.

Which, he reminds himself, is currently endangered by these damn tax agents.

“Davenport?”

He looks up at her, realizing he was lost in his thoughts for a while. “We’re all building a life,” he tells her frankly, with a small smile. “Can’t do that without the whole gang.”

She offers him a small smile in return, hands still shaking, crinkling the edges where they grasp the papers. “Right,” she says, visibly pulling herself together. “So, where are they?”

“I don’t know,” Davenport says. “Have you noticed that magic doesn’t work?”

Lucretia frowns and tries to conjure a small shield.

Nothing happens.

“Well that’s not good,” she deadpans.

“Madam Director Lucretia,” an agent says from right next to her, where there definitely had not been an agent a few seconds ago. She jolts and darts out an elbow directly at their face, which the agent calmly avoids. The agent turns to Davenport. “Captain D. Davenport.”

“That’s me,” Davenport says, taking charge as Lucretia twists away from the agent, glaring at them. “Where are Merle and Taako? We c-came to visit them.”

“Yes,” the agent says. “However, The Head would instead like to speak with you.”

“Who are you?” Lucretia asks sharply, gravitas and anger in equal measure. “You’re not the ones who came to the house.”

Davenport gives her a sideways glance, but finds the agent nodding. “You are correct,” the agent says, waving towards a door that hadn’t been there before, through which another agent, identical, waits. “I am Agent Evan,” the agent in the room says. “And my partner, Agent Essence.”

Lucretia pointedly doesn’t look at Davenport, pressing her lips together in the way that means she’s desperately trying not to laugh, and he has to call on all his old self-conscious poker-faced skills to not break into a smile himself.

“Very well then,” she says, mustering up her gravitas. “If it will allow us to settle this whole ridiculousness, lead on.”

They follow the agents out of the square room to find themselves in an open space, still made up of that creamy off-white stone but much, much bigger than the room they were just in. They can see a few people in the distance, mostly in small groups, but none of the distinctive silhouettes of their family members. Agent Evan places a hand on Lucretia’s shoulder and she instinctively flips them, looming over the agent now on the ground. Agent Essence starts forward only for Agent Evan to hold out a hand.

“My apologies,” they say from the ground. “We must travel to the office of The Head, which we cannot do without physical contact.”

“Warn a lady first,” Lucretia snaps. She doesn’t help them up.

Agent Evan gets to their feet on their own, seemingly unconcerned, and places a much more careful hand on Lucretia’s shoulder. Agent Essence glances down at Davenport, who nods with a frown, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

An instant later and they’re in a small waiting room, stark black and white, although the bare aesthetic is ruined by the stink all but visibly rising from a small trash can. Lucretia and Davenport exchange disgusted glances, and Davenport whispers, “Merle.” Lucretia nods while the double doors in front of them swing open.

“What the fuck,” Lucretia says in her driest voice, staring at The Head.

“Uhhhhh, I agree,” Davenport says, staring. “What the fuck?”

“Madam Director Lucretia,” The Head says, eyebrows lowering. “And Captain D. Davenport.”

“Yes,” Lucretia says, recovering first. “We want our family back.”

The Head’s eyebrows don’t move, its gaze focused on Lucretia intently. “Your family isn’t going anywhere,” it says, still neutral but somehow cold. “Nor are either of you.”

“Excuse me?” Davenport says sharply.

The Head doesn’t sigh, but somehow conveys the feeling as if it had. One of the many hands flickers around opening drawers, and several hands extract two enormous files, each nearly the size of Davenport himself. “Madam Director Lucretia, last name unknown,” The Head reads, sounding almost bored if there were any inflection in its voice at all. “Complete lack of proper business and construction permits before, during, and after construction of one floating moon base or for either iteration of the organization known variably as the Bureau of Balance or Benevolence. Association with known tax evader Maureen Miller, as well as other individuals about which you _will_ be questioned.”

“I’m going to be what?”

“Captain D. Davenport,” The Head continues, several other hands lifting the other file with considerable difficulty. “246 counts of tax evasion within 83 different planar systems—”

“Damn, Captain,” Lucretia says, and Davenport spares a moment of outrage to grin.

“I don’t have to pay taxes,” Davenport argues. “I live on a boat!”

The Head raises its eyebrows ever so slightly. “You still have to pay taxes, Captain D. Davenport. The FIRS has taken on both your case files from all other planes, just as we have with the rest of the members of the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration who currently reside in this planar system.”

“I demand to see proof of this,” Davenport says, hands on his hips in a stance that somehow looks intimidating. The Head doesn’t move, but the hands holding Davenport’s file swoop over to him, depositing it neatly in front of him. Davenport speed reads the first several pages, frowning, while The Head looks back at Lucretia, eyebrows lowering again.

“Madam Director Lucretia,” The Head says, and Lucretia instinctively reaches for her wand, which to her surprise is gone. Davenport, seeing this, reaches for some of his more hidden knives and finds them gone too.

They exchange another glance, more worried now, and Lucretia straightens and glares at The Head. Davenport can’t stop a flicker of pride, reminded of her in cycle 66, but ignores it when The Head starts to speak again.

“You are a known associate of our most wanted evaders,” The Head says, and every single one of the hands gathers around Lucretia in a thickly bunched circle, palm out towards her. “You will tell us where they are.”

“Nah,” Lucretia says, and her voice doesn’t shake at all. In fact, it fairly drips with contempt, and she even crosses her arms, raising a single eyebrow at The Head. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about, but no.”

“ ** _ART GOODFRIEND_** ,” The Head booms, nearly shaking the room.

A moment of silence.

Lucretia bursts into laughter, helpless, which goes on for a few moments before she gets it under control. “ _What_?”

“And his known associate, **_SKELLY_** ,” The Head says, eyebrows lowering still further. “Employee of,” and it all but hisses the name, even with no change in tone. “ _Camp Goodfriend_. You will tell us **_where they are_**.”

“I assume where they were last,” Lucretia says, wiping the tears from her eyes, still grinning. “Why do you even care?”

“They **_Did Not File_**.”

“Right,” Lucretia says after another few moments, pressing her lips together again. She pointedly doesn’t look at Davenport, who is just barely holding it together himself. “I don’t have a specific fucking  _address_ for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And what of…” The Head stops, apparently to gather itself. “The **_Abomination_**?”

“The what?” Lucretia asks after a moment and a confused glance with Davenport.

The Head all but growls, again with no change in tone, “ ** _Upsy_ , _Your Lifting Friend_**.”

“Oh my god.”

“And what of…” The Head pauses consulting a different sheet that a hand holds up. “The Innkeeper?”

“You leave Keeper alone,” Lucretia snaps.

“Yeah, there’s no way Keeper would have d-done anything to be wanted by you guys,” Davenport adds, incredulous.

“Who’s next?” Lucretia interrupts. “Garfield the Deals Warlock?”

“No, we have him,” The Head says, still staring Lucretia down.

“You _what_?” Lucretia and Davenport say together.

“He is… hard to contain,” The Head says, eyebrows relaxing ever so slightly. “He is put in our Celestial-level cells, when necessary. We also seek,” and one of the hands moves from the tight ring around Lucretia to snatch a sheet of paper and hold it up for The Head. “The two voidfish, known as Fisher and Junior.”

“Y-you want the voidfish?” Davenport asks. “What could they have done?”

“Intellectual property theft.”

“I don’t know where they are either,” Lucretia says coolly. “Nor would I give you that information if I did. Come on, who else?”

“Lucretia,” Davenport says cautiously.

“No, come on,” Lucretia says, glaring at The Head again. “Doug Math, the inventor of math on Faerun? No? What about Captain Captain Bane? Should he be imprisoned, I don’t know, misfiling a _fucking_ arrest report or something?”

“Hostile intent detected—” The Head starts, before she cuts it off again.

“Or maybe _Clint McElroy_ , the embezzling janitor,” she says sarcastically. “But you wouldn’t have jurisdiction over him, would you? Or Chancellor Marlowe, maybe? Bet you want her for ‘intellectual property theft’ too.”

“Well—”

“How about everyone else we’re ‘ _known associates_ ’ of, huh?” Lucretia snaps. “We met a whole lotta people while we were fighting to save the multiverse, you know. Cam, maybe? I bet he didn’t file the proper _paperwork_ for being a _head_.”

The Head doesn’t move, although the hands are slowly starting to rotate around Lucretia as she rants. She ignores both the hands and Davenport pulling on her arm.

“L-Lucretia, stop.”

“What about Edward and Lydia, huh?” she says. “Or did you let the Raven Queen keep jurisdiction? Or even my old friend Coach Derek Taylor? Do you meet up with Touchdown Todd for lunch?”

“Goodbye,” The Head says flatly.

“I’m not done—” But Lucretia is cut off when the hands whirl around both her and Davenport, obscuring The Head, and when their vision clears they are standing in a wide tunnel made of that same creamy off-white stone, in front of what seems to be a cafeteria, through which they can hear cheering the distinctive cadences of Taako and Lup, putting on a show.

“Feel b-better?” Davenport says dryly.

“Not really,” Lucretia says, her anger leaving her all at once. She sags, crossed arms shifting to a protective hug.

Davenport sighs and pats her on the hip, a gesture familiar from their century and not repeated since. Her face tightens, hands gripping at her arms. “C’mon,” he says, as patiently as he can, hit hard by memories of that lost decade, of forcing her to sleep, of leading her to eat something when she went too long without food. “Let’s g-go watch the show.” He cracks a smile. “Maybe I can get a swing at these agents after all.”

 

*

 

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“My dogs are not business expenses!” Magnus roars, slashing Railsplitter at Agent 182, who narrowly leaps out of the way. “They’re family!”

“That’s not how they should be filed,” Agent Blink says, appearing next to Keats and whipping a dagger at him. The long-dead elf laughs in delight and catches it, whipping it back at the agent with glee.

“What about Ruby then?” Magnus demands, using his second attack to throw Chance Lance at Agent 182, who catches it in the shoulder with a pained grunt and no change in expression. “She was her own creature! So’s Johann! The dog, not the man.”

“We’re looking for Ruby too,” Agent 182 says.

“What, really?”

“No,” Agent Blink says, dodging the knife and appearing behind Magnus, kicking his legs out from under him. The fighter falls with a surprised yell. “That was a ruse.”

“Cheating!” Magnus yells. “Right, Keats?”

“I dunno, man!” Keats yells back, catching Agent 182’s sword with his scythe.

“You good?”

“I’m having the time of my undead life!”

“Cool, cool cool cool,” Magnus grunts, blocking Agent Blink’s knife with his Shield of Heroic Memories. “I could use a little, uh, help?”

Keats grins wider and spin kicks Agent 182 into Agent Blink, knocking the latter off Magnus. The elf bounds over, pulling him up and away from the two agents. Despite the flurry of blows they’ve taken from fists, shields, scythes, and other bladed weapons, the agents don’t appear to be bleeding. They are as expressionless as they were at the beginning of the fight, and they watch Magnus and Keats without blinking.

“How’s it going?” Keats asks, supporting Magnus as he catches his breath.

“Well, been better,” Magnus says. “How are we supposed to win?”

“I dunno!”

“Uhhh, I get that you’re loving the whole semi-alive thing again,” Magnus says, eyeing Keats. “But maybe could you, uhhh, remember they’ve trapped most of my family in here?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s really not!”

“It will be,” Keats says confidently. “Even if we don’t win this fight, they can’t stop me. I can keep bringing people back and forth until something works. Besides,” and he knocks a knife away from Magnus’s face. “It’s not really that bad in here. They’re lawful neutral, not evil.”

“I don’t know what that means, Keats!”

“A little meta, I’ll grant you,” Keats says as Magnus blocks Agent 182’s sword as the agents rush them. “But it’ll be fine. Y’all can have a whole family reunion in here if you want!”

Magnus stares at Keats for a moment, even as he stabs at Agent Blink with Chance Lance. “You need to get out more.”

“I keep telling Her Majesty that!”

The two agents glance at each other and then flicker before vanishing completely. Magnus falls forward as the weight against the other end of his lance disappears, narrowly catching himself, while Keats whips his head around, looking for them.

The agents reappear behind them, each holding one end of a rope, and they work fast, wrapping the rope around both their legs, effectively trapping Magnus and Keats against each other. They fall with a twin yelp, the agents lowering various sharp weapons near their throats.

“A good fight,” Agent Blink says.

“A very good fight,” Agent 182 agrees. “But it is time for Magnus Burnsides to be taken into custody, and for you, Keats, Ward of the Raven Queen, to depart.”

“Fuckin hell,” Keats says, flipping them the bird from his position on the floor. “For the moment, you bastards.”

“Wait, Keats,” Magnus says as the agents pull the elf up. “What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t worry, Magnus,” Keats says reassuringly, shaking the agents’ hands off him with a contemptuous toss of his shoulders. “You guys… you have a lot of friends, you know? Not just in the Prime Material Plane.” He winks, swinging his scythe to stop the agents from stepping towards him menacingly. In the same motion, he tears open a portal. “Go meet up with your fam. I can hear Kravitz’s husband and Lemon Lup putting on a show.”

“Wait, what?” Magnus demands as Keats steps through the portal. “ _Lemon Lup_?”

The elf pops halfway through the portal again, grinning, and shrugs. “She brings me lemon cake. It’s good! Bye!”

“Keats—”

But the elf is gone, the portal closing up again, and Magnus is left with Agents Blink and 182 standing over him. He blinks, glaring up at them, and his weapons are gone, although Steven the fish remains on his hip. He rises warily, itching for his weapons again. “So, fellas, you seen an old guy named Steven recently? I named my fish after him!”

Agent 182 appears behind him, promoting a startled yell from Magnus, and settles a hand on his shoulder. In an instant, Magnus has been deposited outside a cafeteria, a cheering crowd within it. “Well tits,” he says, and notices a very surprised Lucretia and Davenport staring at him. “Hi guys!” he says cheerfully. “Guess yours didn’t work either, huh?”

“No, bud,” Davenport says, both of them ignoring Lucretia’s muttered “for fucks sake.”

“Well, let’s see what’s going on!” Magnus says, gesturing to the cafeteria, and he steers them all inside.

 

*

 

_Neverwinter, Faerun_

“Hello sir,” Angus says brightly to the guards outside the palace. “I’d like to speak to Lord Artemis Sterling, please!”

“Uhh, I don’t think this is gonna work, Ango,” Avi says, fidgeting behind Angus when the guard’s gaze falls on him. He feels his face redden as the guard lifts up his helmet, revealing a handsome, scarred face, a little older, with a neatly trimmed red and gray beard.

“Sure, Mr. McDonald,” the handsome guard says. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you. And who is your friend here?”

“Thanks, Rowan,” Angus says. “That’s Brad,” he points to the orc, who waves cheerfully. “And this is Avi.”

“H-hi,” Avi stammers.

“It’s about my family,” Angus says seriously. “You should come with us.”

Rowan’s face changes as he looks away from Avi, a shadow passing over him, his grip tightening on his halberd. Avi notices that his left hand only has nine fingers. “I see,” the guard says. “We’ll have to let Antonia know, after this meeting.”

“Of course.”

Rowan turns to the other guard. “Robbie, you got this?”

“Yeeeah, duuude, no problem.”

“Wait, Pringles?” Avi says, trying to see through the helmet. “Is that you?”

“What’s up?” Robbie/Pringles says, lazily waving. “Got a new gig now.”

“Huh,” Avi says.

“Good for you, Robbie,” Brad says warmly.

“Hey hey, Brad! What’s up my man?”

“Brad, if you want to stay here and catch up with Pringles, that’s fine, but I’m going on,” Angus says, already moving towards the palace.

Avi hurries after Angus, Rowan falling into step beside him easily, while Brad exchanges stone frequencies with Pringles. “So, uh, how do you know any of the Birds?” Avi asks awkwardly, glancing sideways at Rowan.

“Oh, the worst day of my life,” Rowan says cheerfully.

“Oh, uh—”

“Wonderland, you know.”

Avi falls silent, his face burning. He _doesn’t_ , is the thing, he never went in, but he was one of the earlier Bureau recruits. He saw the Director go in young and come out old, saw Taako and Merle come back with a mannequin Magnus. Obviously there was, uhhh, a whole lotta stuff to deal with right after that so it’s not like anyone _talked_ about it, but he knows enough to know that Wonderland was some pretty bad shit.

“It’s okay,” Rowan says after an increasingly uncomfortable few moments. “I didn’t get it as bad as Antonia. And it’s been a few years, ya know?” he slaps Avi on the shoulder, coaxing a smile from him. “Got this cool new gig, couldn’t live in the Felicity Wilds anymore after… all that.” He shakes his head ruefully and offers Avi some jerky. “Got my dexterity shot to hell and all in that place, and,” he taps his left ear. “Not hearing so well anymore, but.” He shakes the bag until Avi takes some jerky.

“I’m sorry?” Avi offers after a few seconds.

Rowan shrugs. “It is what it is, ya know?” he says. “What about you?”

“Oh, me?” Avi laughs, awkwardly. “What about me?”

“You’re part of the Bureau, right?” Rowan pokes at Avi’s bracer, narrowly missing accidentally summoning a sphere. “That’s gotta be _wild_.”

Avi starts telling him about running the cannons on the moon base, and has him laughing over the story of when Magnus tried to go in them when he was like, _super_ fucked up because of one of Pringles’s potions, while Angus guides them through checkpoint after checkpoint, staring down whatever guard tries to pull the age card on him.

Brad catches up to Angus, passing Rowan and Avi with a smile, just as they arrive to the massive door of Lord Artemis Sterling’s meeting room. Angus pushes the doors open with a casual Gust of Wind, not even slowing down. Lord Artemis Sterling looks up in surprise, as do the four businessmen he’s meeting with.

“Hello, Detective McDonald,” Sterling says quickly, gratitude evident in his tone. “Well, sorry gentlemen, but it looks like we’re going to have to table this discussion, as I’m sure Detective McDonald has something extremely urgent to discuss with me.”

“This is just a boy,” the closest businessman says gruffly, peering at Angus.

Angus frowns. “Steve Johnson, owner of the biggest shipping company in Neverwinter, you doctor your books to hide your embezzlement so you can send expensive gifts to your secret daughter in Goldcliff,” he recites from memory, ignoring the shocked gasps and narrowing eyes. He keeps going around the table, pointing at each businessman in turn. “Rex Reed, attempted to take advantage of the destruction of the southern half of Neverwinter during the Day of Story and Song before being stopped by Madam Director Lucretia. Rod Peterwax, extortionist landlord to half the towns between Neverwinter and New Phandolin, currently being investigated for all sorts of fraud by the Neverwinter Militia,” he stops, glaring at Peterwax. “Why haven’t those agents taken _you_?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And Wisp Blinkman, on the brink of financial collapse after being exposed as the primary funds provider for at least three city gangs which have since disbanded,” Angus finishes, still glaring. “I suggest all four of you go back to whatever holes you call home and let me speak to Lord Artemis Sterling. My grandfather would be ashamed of all of you. Bye!”

Grumbling, shooting venomous glares tinged with more than a little fear in Angus’s direction, although shying away from him for the moment thanks in no small part to Brad looming just behind him, the businessmen shuffle out, stuffing papers into briefcases as they go. Rowan and Avi come in just as they leave, watching in confusion before Angus slams the door shut with another Gust of Wind.

“Hi, Angus,” Sterling sighs. “Thanks for getting me out of that meeting. Is all that really true?”

Angus raises his eyebrows. “Of course it is, sir.”

“Right,” Sterling says, fidgeting under Angus’s stare. “What did you need?”

“Help,” Angus says flatly. “My whole family got kidnapped by celestial tax agents and they keep not coming back.”

“O-oh,” Sterling stammers. “Uh, I-I’m sorry, Angus, but I don’t know—”

“I keep getting this business cards that means more of them are stuck,” Angus continues, waving the one business card left. “And I don’t know how to get them out.” He summarizes the rest of the things they’ve tried, and the outcomes, for an increasingly alarmed Sterling.

“W-well,” Sterling says, carefully investigating the business card that Angus hands him. “This is all terrible, of course, but I’m not sure what you want _me_ to do, Angus, but—”

“All due respect, sir,” Angus says sharply, shrugging off Brad’s comforting hand. “You’re one of the most powerful people in the world. You must be able to do _something_.”

“They’re all gone?” Rowan interrupts. “Magnus, Merle, Taako—”

“Everyone except Miss Lucretia and Captain Davenport,” Angus says. “But they’re there too, trying to get the rest of them out. Even the reapers couldn’t do anything, and they got caught too.”

“I can’t just march into some celestial tax prison and demand their release,” Sterling says, handing the business card back to Angus. “No offense, Angus, but I don’t think I’m gonna have much pull with uhhhhh,” he shrugs. “Whatever kind of being these things are. I can offer you…” he thinks for a few moments, tapping his fingers together. “Well, what do you need?”

“Wood,” Avi says when Angus doesn’t say anything. “Uh, yew and pine wood, specifically. And a place to burn it?”

“Of course.”

“Uh, sir?” Rowan says, stepping forward. “Permission to help them out? Looks like they need all the resources they can get.”

Sterling nods before Rowan even finishes his sentence. “I’ll set Rascal and Cliff Clavin at the front gate,” he says. “To relieve Robert, as well.”

“Please, sir,” Rowan says with a grin. “He prefers Pringles.”

“Don’t we all.”

“Can’t you do _anything_?” Angus bursts out, interrupting them. Everyone turns to him, surprised, and Brad tries another comforting hand on his shoulder before Angus throws it off again. “You’re supposed to be powerful,” Angus snaps. “What’s the point if you can’t help me get my family back?”

“We are going to get them back, Angus,” Brad says soothingly.

“Right now, it seems like we’re just throwing more people into prison,” Angus says. “Which normally I’m all about, sir, but I’m the world’s greatest detective, and I know that doing the same thing over and over again isn’t just going to start working!”

“I’ll be honest,” Sterling says, leaning forward. “I don’t know how to help you. But whatever you need, you’ll get. A place to stay, maybe?” he watches Angus anxiously.

“What about Antonia’s?” Rowan asks. “She’s got plenty of space to build a fire or whatever, and she’d want to hear about this too.”

Sterling nods, and everyone looks back to Angus, who lets out a deep, slow breath.

“Okay,” he says, forcibly loosening his fists. He glances up at Rowan. “Thank you, sir.”

Rowan laughs. “C’mon, Ango,” he says, and Angus smiles for the first time since they left Taako and Kravitz’s house. “You know I’m no sir. Jerky?”

Angus takes some jerky as Brad, Avi, and Sterling quickly arrange for the wood to be transported to Antonia’s store. Sterling walks them out, listening intently to Angus detail what else they’ve tried, and then gives them sturdy city-trained horses to get to Antonia’s more quickly. Angus rides with Brad while Avi and Rowan ride together, Avi splashing water on his face in a vain attempt to excuse his blush on the heat of the sun.

“This is it,” Rowan says after a short ride through Neverwinter, pulling up in front of a small two-story building, labeled Antonia’s Wares in flowing script. The store is crammed full of potions and lush flowering plants, and not a few costumers. Antonia herself is sitting outside in the sun, her dark purple hair loose and flowing down her shoulders. She’s holding a curling vine in her lap, checking it for bugs and diseases by touch, her eyes covered by a thin strip of red linen. She smiles when she hears Rowan announce where they are.

“Hi, Tonia,” Rowan says brightly, patting her head.

“Hi,” Antonia says, face still turned straight ahead but elven ears moving. “You brought friends.”

“Hello, ma’am,” Angus says politely. “My name is Angus McDonald.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Antonia says as they shake hands. “Merle is very complimentary.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it, ma’am.”

Antonia laughs as Brad and Avi introduce themselves.

“Uh, ma’am?” Angus asks as Rowan and Avi go to set up the yard for the pyre. “If I can ask, what happened to your eyes?”

Antonia loses her smile, bowing her head slightly.

“Angus,” Brad says reproachfully. “That wasn’t a very kind thing to ask.”

“It’s alright,” Antonia sighs. “It’s a common question.” She lifts a hand from the vine in her lap and lifts up one side of the strip of red linen. Angus, looking closely, can see not only that she just has empty sockets, but that there’s heavy scarring and what looks like thin watery lines seared into the skin around where her eyes used to be.

“Oh,” he says quietly.

“Wonderland,” she says, equally quietly.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” Angus says. “I can tell it made you sad to talk about.”

“Well,” Antonia musters up a small smile. “Rowan got over it a little more quickly than I have. I miss my eyes, and…” she pauses. “The other things I lost, but I have my store, and my friends, and life is good, most days.”

“You and Rowan, are you together?” Brad asks. “You seem quite close.”

Antonia laughs at that, loud and bright. “Oh no,” she says when she finishes laughing. “Oh no. Me and Rowan? No, no.” She starts laughing again.

“I didn’t mean to say something ridiculous,” Brad says, smiling himself.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just,” Antonia shakes her head, still chuckling. “I’m like, extremely gay. Just very, very gay. So’s he, mostly.”

“Well, Avi will be glad to hear it,” Brad murmurs, so quietly that Angus barely hears it. Antonia does, her ears flicking up, and she laughs again.

“Why are you here?” she asks in a friendly way, motioning them to take seats next to hers. “Not that I don’t enjoy the company, but Rowan sounded like there was something going on. Why are they talking about specific kinds of wood back there?”

Angus catches her up on what’s going on while Brad, after asking permission, goes in to make some tea. A cartload of wood pulls up before Rowan and Avi even return. Antonia rises and checks the type easily, even without eyes, and confirms it’s the kind of wood they requested. Brad comes out with several cups of tea floating after him, Angus starting to Levitate small logs of yew and pine towards Rowan and Avi in the yard, when there’s a small _pop_.

The logs clatter to the floor as Angus loses concentration, snatching the new business card out of the air. Before he even opens his mouth, another _pops_ into existence right next to it. Angus growls and reads, “Visiting hours for Magnus Burnsides, Madam Director Lucretia, and Captain D. Davenport are Monday through— _not again_.”

“Well shit,” Avi says. “So that didn’t work.”

There’s a small tearing sound, and Keats steps through mussed, scratched, and grinning. His grin weakens slightly, although it doesn’t disappear, when he sees Angus, glaring at two new business cards, a distressed Brad, an uncomfortable Rowan and Avi, and a confused Antonia. “Hi again,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “It, uhhh, didn’t exactly _work_ , per se, but—”

“We know, sir,” Angus cuts him off. “Lord Artemis Sterling was functionally useless.”

“You went all the way to the top?” Keats hoots. “Just skipped up to one of the most powerful people in the world?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing.”

Brad’s stone rings, interrupting them, Carey and Killian on the other end. They couldn’t find Leon, but they have picked up Hurley and Sloane, who are ready and eager to help. Brad agrees, looking to Angus for where to have them meet up.

“Have them meet us here,” Angus says. “I’m going to Chaos Stadium.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy it's been a hot sec huh
> 
> updates might take a bit of a break because of taakitz week starting up soon, but we'll see!
> 
> the thing with the comments and the kudos, you know
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	7. , in which Tres Horny Boys pull their usual bullshit, Angus recruits someone actually helpful and is tired of everyone’s shit, and everyone else is far less competent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit of a long boy, this chapter, stay safe, use the buddy system, you got this

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“Yeah, you know that’s how we do!” Taako yells over the cheering of the crowd, exchanging a fist bump with Lup in passing.

His sister just laughs and flips the hash browns out of her skillet towards him. Taako, already effortlessly in place, catches them with his own frying pan, winking at a very impressed Kravitz. Barry, having seen it before, is still cheering as loud as he ever has, calling different moves for them to do from the crowd. Merle is trying (and failing) to bodysurf on the crowd, and as the dwarf is dropped again, Taako sees three more people they know walk in.

“Don’t look now Lulu, but looks like more chucklefucks got caught,” he says.

“Well dang,” Lup says, whisking the eggs to the beat that Barry is laying down.

“Hi guys!” Magnus yells cheerfully as he shoulders his way through the crowd, carefully enough that he doesn’t hurt anyone. Lucretia and Davenport follow, Lucretia absently apologizing to the people they bump into.

“Well hey Dav,” Merle says from the ground as Davenport trips over him.

“Merle!” Davenport pulls him up. “You’re okay!”

“Would be if I didn’t keep getting dropped anyway,” the dwarf grumbles, slinging an arm around Davenport’s shoulders. “I see you brought the rest of the kids.”

“We d-don’t know what Magnus d-did,” Davenport says. “But they have a file on me, and Lucretia kind of—”

“Got angry,” Lucretia mutters, watching the twins.

“Something like that.”

“I’ve been making friends,” Merle says, pointing to the bearded human he’d been talking to. “Ned Chicane. Oh, and we found a records room.”

“A records room?” Lucretia says with interest, watching as Magnus continues to push forward until he’s next to a beatboxing Barry. “We could do something with that, I think.”

“Shhh!” Davenport hisses, noting the agents ringing the edges of the crowd, several of them watching Lucretia intently. “We’ll have to d-discuss it later.”

“Guys, c’mon!” Magnus calls. “Fantasy sushi and breakfast foods!”

Taako and Lup are indeed in the midst of plating their creations, while the crowd is cheering and assembling themselves into a loose line that is really more of a vague group. The human, Ned, is angling to be at the front, his friends Charm and Shell following. Magnus waves Davenport, Merle, and Lucretia forward, blocking the other human until they get there with a “saviors of the multiverse, coming through!”

“You got caught too, huh Cap?” Lup says as they emerge from the crowd.

“And this human tank,” Taako says, waving at Magnus and pointedly ignoring Lucretia. “What did _you_ do?”

“Evasion,” Davenport says with a shrug. “Magnus? You lose a fight there, buddy?”

“They can teleport, guys!” Magnus says defensively. “I can just swing an axe real hard!”

“Where’s Keats?” Kravitz breaks in, skimming the crowd behind them for the elf.

“They don’t have jurisdiction or something, they said,” Magnus says, snatching a pancake from Taako’s spatula, ignoring the elf’s shriek, and stuffing it in his mouth. “Good fighter though,” he says around a mouthful of pancake.

“You fought the tax agents?” Kravitz asks, and he sounds almost impressed.

“Yeah, I’m like, really good at punching things,” Magnus says, swallowing the pancake. “They don’t bleed or anything, it’s super weird!”

“So where is he?” Kravitz asks again, when Magnus is readying for another snatch.

“Oh, he went back to Faerun! Said we had a lot of friends? Did you know he calls Lup ‘Lemon Lup’?”

“There are no lemons in the Astral Plane!” Lup calls.

“We’re well aware of the lemon situation in the Astral Plane, thank you!” Kravitz calls back. “You still need to do your damn paperwork!”

“We gonna eat or what?” Merle demands from where he’s been introducing a confused Davenport to a friendly Ned.

“Hold your horses, old man!” Taako yells back.

The twins rapidly assemble plates of everyone’s favorites, although Taako only puts octopus on Lucretia’s plate, along with her preferred breakfast foods, hash browns and double poached eggs with fantasy Sriracha sauce. She accepts it with a wordless grimace, offering Taako a rueful smile that he ignores. He instead turns to Lup, who in turn looks at the crowd.

“And that’s our show, folks!” she yells. “It’s set up buffet style so go for it!”

“Buffet, you say?” Taako says, effortlessly managing his and Kravitz’s plates as he leads them out of the kitchen. He launches into ‘When Salome Plays The Drums’ by fantasy Jimmy Buffet until Barry summarily dumps half the eggs on his plate down Taako’s shirt.

“What the fuck happened to you!” Lup yells as Taako shrieks and Magnus doubles over in laughter. “You used to be my brother!”

“You’re going to get time added onto your sentence for fantasy copyright infringement,” Lucretia deadpans as everyone else laughs.

“She’s right you know,” Kravitz says, not bothering to help Taako brush the eggs off him as Merle and Davenport claim a long table.

“How dare you, Barold!” Taako yells over the rest of his family laughing.

“I just want to remind everybody that Taako makes up one seventh of the family who saved the multiverse—” Magnus starts.

“Who saved fuck all,” Lup cuts him off, holding her glare for another second, her and Taako locking eyes, before they both burst into laughter themselves.

The seven, plus Kravitz, settle at the long table, loosely assembling themselves much as they did on the Starblaster, albeit Lucretia sitting farther away from both Davenport and Taako. She ends up squeezed between Magnus and Merle, directly across from Barry and Lup, while Taako and Kravitz sit across from Davenport, seated next to Merle. They eat, among the usual roar of conversation and shitty jokes flying this way and that, and they can almost forget that they’re in prison. Others drift over, adding to the atmosphere of comfortable chaos, even if some of the Hammerheads are glaring. Charm and Shell have brought over another friend, who they introduce as Woof, both pinning Magnus with a stare before he launches into some joke about his dogs. There are a few other familiar faces, including Craig, of Craig’s List fame, and a glaring aarakocra with a scrawled nametag reading “Ray”. The aarakocra is sitting next to a similarly glaring halfling, dressed to the nines and occasionally flipping off Magnus, Merle, and Taako.

“Who _is_ that fool?” Taako asks, the third time this happens.

“From the battlewagon race, the second one!” Magnus says helpfully.

“Albert, Alex, something like that?” Merle says.

“It’s Alfred! Alfred D’Gaul!” the halfling yells.

“No one cares, Albert!” Magnus yells back.

But that’s enough for the three to launch into the story of when they saved Hurley and Sloane’s battle racing, since it wasn’t in the Story, while Davenport leans around Merle towards Lucretia. She jumps when he taps at her hand, nearly spilling her wine.

“We s-should plan,” he says under the roar of the boys telling their story. “D-Do something about that records room.”

She nods and pokes at Magnus as he winds down the story. “Get other people to tell theirs,” she whispers.

“Aw, what?” Magnus says at normal volume.

Lucretia, Barry, and Davenport all roll their eyes in unison, a move never practiced but certainly perfected on the Starblaster. This draws the attention of the rest of the crew, plus Kravitz, although Taako picks up on it first and turns to the crowd. “Who else has stories?” he yells.

The rest need no encouragement, several people launching into tales simultaneously, giving the eight plenty of cover to lean together.

“Alright gang,” Davenport says, taking charge. “Merle said there are r-records for everyone that they passed. If we get in there—”

“We can destroy our records and get outta here?” Taako says. “I was thinking the same thing, hell yeah!”

“Do I get to punch?” Magnus asks.

“That didn’t go so well for you last time, bud,” Barry says.

“Yeah but I get like, a lot of attacks? Like six of em? It’ll be great.”

“That could work, actually,” Lucretia says, ignoring Taako’s scoff. “If the three of you,” and she looks at Taako, Magnus, and Merle. “Distract the agents, some of us could sneak in from different angles and see if we can find our records.”

“Not a bad plan, babe,” Lup says. “Me, Barold, and Ghost Rider can be one of the infiltration teams. We do it all the time for Bird Momma.”

“Are you ever going to stop calling your literal actual goddess that?” Kravitz asks, in the tone of one already defeated.

“Nope!”

“And Lucretia and I can sneak in from another angle,” Davenport says, nodding.

“How exactly are we going to distract them?” Merle asks. “Punching em doesn’t work!”

“No reason I can’t try again!” Magnus says.

“I’ll just dazzle them with my brilliance,” Taako declares. “Or, if that fails, baffle them with my bullshit.”

“So the usual,” Kravitz says, pressing a kiss into Taako’s hair.

“You know it homie.”

“Do we know where the records room is?” Barry asks as Lup elbows her brother, mouthing “Gross” at him.

“Oh, I know who knows!” Taako says brightly, grinning wider at Merle’s groan.

“Who?” Davenport asks, looking to Merle.

“My,” Merle sighs, deeply, and points to the powerful dwarven woman talking cheerfully to Brock Thickstone. “My Aunt Blarg.”

He winces through everyone else’s laughter, crossing his soulwood arm over his original flesh arm as he waits in out. Davenport manages to stifle his laughter enough to give Merle a consoling kiss, which changes the laughter to loud exclamations of disgust from everyone else.

“Alight,” their captain says, grinning at the smile back on Merle’s face. “We’ll go talk to her. You three, start by d-distracting the agents still in here. If necessary, make a whole hell of a lot of noise.”

“That is our brand,” Taako says.

“Oh, if their pupils are rotating, that means they’re talking to each other!” Magnus says. He’s met by baffled stares.

Lup finds her voice first. “ _What_?”

Magnus shrugs. “Keats told me. Said they’re like, a hive mind?”

“Weird,” Lucretia says after another few moments of confused silence.

“Tres horny boys, roll out,” Taako declares, giving Kravitz a kiss as he stands up.

“Worst name ever, Koko!”

“Nope, that’s dumb, don’t say that.”

“You’re calling yourselves what now?”

Kravitz rolls his eyes and goes to retrieve Aunt Blarg while Taako, Merle and Magnus make their way out of the crowd to the agents still menacingly ringing the outer edges of the cafeteria. The agents converge on the three as Taako and Magnus grin. Merle leans on Magnus’s hip in a faux casual stance.

“Hey there, fellas,” Magnus says brightly.

“Magnus Burnsides,” an agent says, as they step forward with two others. “Taako Taaco, Earl Merle Hitower Highchurch.”

“So homies, what are your names?” Taako asks, also leaning on Magnus’s shoulder.

“I am Agent Fall,” the lead agent says. “This is Agent Out, and this is Agent Boy.”

“Right,” Taako says, choking down giggles as Magnus splutters and Merle bursts into laughter, ducking behind Magnus’s legs so he can compose himself. “Well I’m Taako, ya know, from TV? We had a few, uh, questions for you boys?”

“We are here to answer questions,” Agent Fall says.

“Cool cool cool,” Magnus says, swallowing his laughter for the moment. “So, uhhh, how long have you been doing this for, uh, Agent Fall?”

“We have no concept of time.”

“Right,” Magnus says awkwardly. He elbows Taako. “Oh, my friend Taako had a question for you!”

“Taako Taaco,” Agent Out says. “What is your question for us?”

“Cool down, bubbeleh, I’m thinkin,” Taako says, one last giggle escaping before he composes himself. “Can we, uh, hit you with some names and you’ll tell us if they’re in here?”

“We know a lot of people, is all, and we wanna say hi,” Merle chimes in.

“Very well,” Agent Boy says.

“Uhhhh, Boyland?” Magnus asks.

“Hate that guy,” Merle mutters.

The three agents stare at the elf, the human, and the dwarf, their pupils slowly whirling. The other agents watch, pupils also rotating. “No,” Agent Fall says eventually. “He misfiled some of his children, but he is not imprisoned.”

“Brody?” Taako asks.

“We dunked on him pretty hard,” Magnus says.

“No,” Agent Out says.

“Sergeant Barry?” Taako asks.

“No.”

" _Private_ Barry?”

“One Barry Taaco Blujeans nee Hallwinter, one-time alias Private Barry before his death from magical vines,” Agent Boy recites after a few moments of pupil rotating, pointing towards Barry, deep in discussion with his fellow reapers, Davenport, and Lucretia.

“Oh shit,” Magnus says. “That was _our_ Barold?”

Who the _hell_ are you talking about?” Merle says.

“They were at the Goldcliff Trust when it was vined.”

“Oh,” Merle grins. “That was a good day.”

“Shut up!” Taako shouts while Magnus howls. “No! I’m not listening to this! You’re done, old man!”

Merle’s grin widens as he wiggles his eyebrows at the agents, who look back impassively. Magnus groans. “One moment,” he says, holding up a single finger towards Agents Fall, Out, and Boy. He hoists Merle by the collar and turns back towards the crowd. “Hey, uh, you?”

The girl, seated with Charm, Shell, Woof, and Merle’s new friend Ned, looks up, shaking back dark hair. She waves, eyebrows raised. “Um, yes?”

“Do you want a gross dwarf, we’re done with him,” Taako says.

Merle, dangling from Magnus’s hand, wiggles his eyebrows at the girl, and laughs as she wrinkles her nose.

“Hard pass, Marlee,” Charm advises her friend. She grabs some sashimi from Ned’s plate and launches it at Merle. “Fuck off, old man!”

Merle swallows the whole thing as it sails towards him and shrugs. “That’s fair.”

“Hell yeah!” Taako cheers before Magnus drops Merle back to the ground and they look back at the agents.

“Did you have more questions, or…?” Agent Fall asks, somehow sounding bored without any inflection in their voice whatsoever.

“Yes!” Taako shouts, catching a glimpse of his husband, sister, and brother in law pseudo-casually heading for the exit, his captain and _her_ heading around the other way. “Of course, we have a whole lot more people we want to see if they’re here. Like, uh…”

“Graham the Juicy Wizard!” Magnus jumps in.

“No.”

“Jess?” from Taako.

“The Beheader?”

“Yeah!”

“No.”

“That other prize fighter lady, Queen uhhhhh—

“Sabrina,” Merle says confidently.

“Sabine,” Magnus corrects.

“No.”

“Leeman Kessler,” Merle says, switching to his horrible fantasy Scottish accent.

“No.”

“Do you imprison robits, cause like, Hodge Podge and Upsy should definitely be in jail,” Magnus says, poking Merle until he stops laughing at his own bad accent.

“You know of The Abomination?” Agent Out demands.

“Which one?” Taako says with a grin.

“ **Upsy, Your Lifting Friend** ,” Agent Boy intones, and the rest of the watching agents encircle Taako, Merle, and Magnus. “Where is he?”

“Ask Lucas, homie, we dunno,” Taako says.

“Lucas Miller?” another agent calls from the crowd.

“Yeah?” Magnus says.

Agent Fall turns towards the crowd of agents. “Go to retrieve Lucas Miller. We will question him about The Abomination.”

“Wait, shit, he’s here?” Magnus demands.

“Yes,” Agent Out says. “Imprisoned for fraud and improper filing for his former lab.”

“Oh shit.”

“Hey, while we’re talking shitty people, what about, uhhh, a dude named Sazed?” Taako asks, arms coming up around him in a protective hug. Magnus grips his shoulder comfortingly while Merle comes around and pats his hip. He offers a wan smile at the other boys while keeping his eyes sharp on the agents.

The agents stare again, pupils rotating slowly. “No,” Agent Boy says at last. “He remains on the Prime Material Plane, imprisoned for multiple homicides as well as attempted murder with criminal intent. Do you wish for us to send him a business card for purposes of visiting?”

“No!” Taako says hastily. Magnus and Merle share a glance, eyes narrowing, and Merle at least starts adding to the list of murder field trips in addition to the Kalen one that he and Taako are currently planning.

“Very well,” Agent Fall says. “We will not send a business card for purposes of visiting to one Sazed.”

“While we’re talking about assholes,” Merle says, faux casually. “What about a fella named, Karen? Kevin? No, Kalen.”

“Whoa, boys, I just got a hell of a headache,” Magnus says, rubbing at his head. “Come again, Merle?”

“Not yet,” Agent Out says.

“Right, right,” Merle says. “Don’t worry about it, Maggie, I was just checkin on something.”

“Um, agent dude?” Magnus asks, rubbing at his head as the headache fades. “Yall don’t have, um. You don’t have Julia in here, do you?”

“Julia Waxman remains in the Astral Plane,” Agent Boy says. “Her taxes were entirely in order when administered fairly.”

“What about Wankins?” Taako asks, snickering and shrugging off Magnus and Merle’s comforting hands. “He was a shitty enough wizard.”

“Jenkins,” Magnus explains when the agents don’t say anything.

“We allowed The Raven Queen to retain jurisdiction,” Agent Fall says.

“Magic Brian?”

“The Raven Queen retained jurisdiction.”

“ _Spider_ Bryan?”

“That Bryan was a giant spider and thus was not required to pay taxes.”

“Hudson, my stinky hand buddy!” Magnus says, wiggling said non-stinking hands.

“No.”

“Does Legion count?” Taako asks. “Legion was a whole bunch of ghosts.”

“Individuals within the specter known as Legion were remanded to the jurisdiction of The Raven Queen.”

“What about Cap’nport’s buddy Orla?” Magnus asks.

“No.”

“Captain Calloway?”

“Who the hell are you guys talking about?” Merle grumbles again.

“The skellington captain, with the kraken,” Magnus explains.

“The Raven Queen retained jurisdiction.”

“I have a question that I think is gonna be tricky for you gents,” Taako says with a grin.

“Ask your question, Taako Taaco.”

“What about Reggie?”

“Who?” Magnus and Merle ask together.

“Homie who changed his life with my book of definitely not stolen Taako Originals back at Legato.”

“Oh, good one Taako,” Magnus says, Merle nodding.

“Or Abbess Olga?” Merle asks, with the air of one stumping a master.

“Abbess Oriana?” Magnus corrects.

“Oh yeah.”

“Or the Tesseralia Winners?” Magnus demands. “Gerald, Timothy, Deborah, Susan, Steven, and Derek?”

“You remember those names or are you just bullshitting?” Taako says.

“I remember!” Magnus insists. “I named some of my dogs after them! Or what about my professors from Legato? Kristoph and Bauer?”

“Or Crush?” Merle asks.

“Who the fuck is Crush?” Magnus says.

“The card dealer, from Grimaldis’s casino!”

“Was he one of those boys who you covered in bugs for literally no reason?” Taako snickers.

“Prosecutor Olsen?” Magnus demands, forging ahead. “Or the Power Bear? Oh man, do you boys have the Power Bear in here? Or Troth? What about Troth, I love her.”

“You _gotta_ have Clomp Hoofman, with that insurance fraud?” Merle says.

“Oh yeah, or Jeff Jeffins?” Taako says, lips twitching.

“Dr. Fraiser Crane?” Merle asks knowingly as Taako loses his fight and bursts into laughter. “Or Jamie Green, Bugbear Times?”

“Jamie Green, Faerun Bugbear?” Magnus jumps in as Taako flops against him, laughing.

“Oh, Gerry, Garyl, no, what was that guy’s…” Merle grumbles to himself. “Glymeth?”

“Who?” Magnus asks.

“Hekuba’s new boyfriend,” Merle mumbles, embarrassed.

“Acererak?” Taako asks, rolling the r where it definitely was meant to be rolled. “Or Susan? Yall have Susan, right. I hate Susan.”

“Are you finished?” Agent Out asks when the three fall silent.

“Yeah!” Magnus says cheerfully. “Boys?”

“I’m good, homie.”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

“Very well,” the three agents say together, and stare, pupils rotating fast enough to blur. The other agents press in, their eyes whirling as well, all staring at Magnus, Merle, and Taako in the center. Instinctively they press together, reaching for weapons and wands that aren’t there.

“What’s the likelihood that we got all those names right?” Magnus mutters.

“Very low,” Merle whispers back.

“Nah, they felt right, almost like we were reading off a list,” Taako murmurs.

“Jeffandrew stepping in maybe?” Magnus asks.

“It’d take more than Jeffandrew to get this dude to remember things,” Taako says, leaning on Merle’s head.

“Hey!”

They stay together, watching the agents warily, hoping that somewhere, the rest of their family is taking advantage.

 

_Neverwinter, Faerun_

Angus looks up at Chaos Stadium, entirely repaired from the Hunger’s attack years ago, and rolls his eyes. He points his wand behind him and mutters a bored Fireball, smirking at the yelp of Peterwax’s goons who probably thought they were being subtle.

He clips his wand back onto his lanyard for the moment, pushing open the doors to the stadium. It’s not particularly busy, given that there aren’t any matches today, and he nods at Merrick’s replacement as he walks towards the stage. Marie and her order, worshippers of Tempis all, took over operation of the stadium after the Garrigos debacle, which is also when Angus first met the particular person he’s here to see.

Well.

Person isn’t strictly accurate.

“Angus!” he roars, flipping Christy over his shoulder and grinning broadly.

“Hi, Klaarg.”

“What brings you here, my boy?” Aaron asks. The grizzled bugbear father, leaning against the edge of the ring, claps Angus on the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. Angus smiles anyway.

“Here for a Jeff Angel autograph, perhaps?” Jeff Angel calls from where he’s watching the sparring. He’s eating a huge soft pretzel, wings waving at Angus as he dips it in mustard.

“Maybe later,” Angus says. “Klaarg, I need your help.”

Christy immediately stops trying to chomp on Klaarg’s arm, while Jamie Green pops his head up from underneath the ring. John Cook peers over the catwalk above and swings down at Klaarg’s gesture, and Angus is met with five curious and concerned bugbear stares, plus Jeff Angel.

“Perhaps we can talk about it over some nice Oolong?” Klaarg suggests.

“That’s alright, thank you sir,” Angus says politely. He outlines the whole thing as quickly and efficiently as possible, which, for Angus, is considerably quick and efficient. The bugbears are nodding by the end of his story, while Klaarg stands up to his full intimidating height.

Before he can say anything, a whiny voice floats down from above. “Ha, couldn’t even keep your family together, huh kid?” Poking over the edge of the catwalk, sneering down at them all, is Gerald the Catwalk Boy, dressed in his usual uniform. “Serves em right! Tuff Greg and the rest of them can stay in fantasy tax jail for all I care!”

Angus frowns and climbs into the ring, putting up a hand at Christy and Klaarg bristling. “Excuse me,” he says politely to Klaarg, unclipping his wand from his lanyard. “Would you mind tossing me up there?”

“Sure,” Klaarg says gruffly. He hefts Angus carefully and throws him straight up. Angus soars into the air, shooting out a hand at just the right moment and latching onto the railing of the catwalk. He does a graceful flip to land solidly on the catwalk, directly in front of a very surprised Gerald the Catwalk Boy.

“What did you say?” Angus asks coolly.

Gerald rallies, doing his best to loom over Angus. Given that Angus has grown since he was here last, he is not particularly successful. “You heard me,” he says. “Sounds like they should be in tax jail!”

“That’s my family you’re talking about,” Angus says quietly, wand out.

“So?”

“Taako is my teacher.”

“Yeah, I know! He knocked me off my catwalk.”

“Uh-huh,” Angus says, and casts Gust of Wind.

Gerald the Catwalk Boy is not particularly strong, and does not save.

He goes sailing off with a familiar scream, although there’s no crowd to catch him this time. After a few seconds, there’s a distant _thump_ and a low groaning. Angus lowers his wand, cutting off the spell, and jumps off the catwalk down towards the ring. On the way down, he casts Featherfall, landing gently among the bugbears again.

“Okay,” he says, clipping his wand back on his lanyard. “We could use your help with this, sir.”

“Of course,” Klaarg says. He looks up at his family. “Why don’t you all stay here with Dante? I don’t want you to be caught too, but I need to help them out.”

“You got it, buddy,” Aaron says gently.

“I wanna go fight!” Christy protests.

“No, Christy,” Klaarg says. “Hold down the fort here, okay?”

“I too will help!” Jeff Angel declares, leaping from the stands and hovering above the ring, his glorious white wings keeping him aloft. He nearly drops his soft pretzel on Angus’s head. “Now, what kind of prison did you say they were in?”

Angus raises his eyebrows. “Fantasy tax prison.”

Jeff Angel lands with a thump outside the ring. “Oh shit, never mind,” he says, and turns and sprints out of the stadium.

“What?” Angus demands as the aarakocra leaves the doors swinging behind him.

“Insurance fraud,” Aaron supplies.

“Let’s get going, Angus,” Klaarg says, cracking his hairy knuckles with a sound of wood barrels breaking. “I simply must meet up with Taako again.”

“Great,” Angus says, and turns to walk out.

“A bit slow,” Klaarg says. “I can speed it up, if you’re alright with it?”

“Okay!”

Klaarg swings Angus up onto his shoulders and they wave to the rest of the bugbears. Klaarg bounds out of the stadium, Angus helpfully calling “Get out of the way, please!” and “Watch out sirs and ma'ams!” as the bugbear races through the streets.

They make it back to Antonia’s shop much more quickly than Angus had taken to get to the stadium, to find a familiar battlewagon parked outside. Carey and Killian’s laughter floats up from the backyard, along with Hurley’s jokes and Sloane’s quick chuckles. Antonia is still sitting in her chair, although she turns with a smile when Klaarg slows to a stop and lets Angus swing down from his shoulders.

“Hello again, Angus,” she says. “And… a bugbear?”

“Yes ma’am,” Angus says. “Antonia, this is Klaarg.”

“Charmed,” Klaarg says, offering a large furred hand until he notices Antonia’s bandaged eyes.

“Yes, it seems so,” Antonia agrees. Her smile grows to a grin. “Angus, did you know there are four lesbians in my backyard right now?”

“They’re married already, ma’am.”

“I know,” she says. “But it’s nice to have a pack. And two of them are dryads!”

“You know what they say about gays, ma’am.”

“Ooh, deadpan,” Antonia says, rising and waving them towards the backyard. “I like it. Who taught you that?”

“Another woman who likes women, ma’am.”

“You don’t have to call me ma’am, Angus,” Antonia chides, navigating the lumber and other assorted items with ease. “Antonia is fine. Or Tonia. Tell me, is this woman single, by chance?”

“Why, Tonia, are you looking?” Angus dares, grinning when she laughs.

“Might be,” she muses, pushing open the gate. “Let me guess: the celebrated Madam Director?”

“And I thought you were the detective, Angus,’ Klaarg chimes in from behind them.

“She was quite dry, sometimes, when she was narrating the Story,” Antonia says. “If I still had eyes, they would be glinting with delight right now. She’s also in fantasy tax jail?”

“Yeah, but I do have a lot of this business cards if you want to visit,” Angus says, digging one out of his pocket.

“Not a bad idea,” Antonia murmurs.

“Hey Angus, you’re back!” Avi calls. “Help us set this up!”

“We definitely should not be doing this,” Brad says, although he doesn’t sound particularly against the idea.

They’ve piled a huge amount of the required wood in a large pile in the backyard. Carey and Sloane are perched on the lumber still to be used, swinging their legs in time, while Killian and Brad lift additional pieces into place until Hurley tells them the ratios are accurate. Rowan and Avi are standing to the side, checking each other’s weapons. Keats is floating above them, swooping gently through the air, his face turned up to the sun as he smiles. Antonia weaves around them and joins Carey and Sloane on the lumber. All of them, save Antonia, Rowan, and Brad, shrink back in shock when Klaarg joins them.

“Hello,” he says awkwardly, shrugging a little.

“Everyone, this is Klaarg,” Angus says brightly. “He fought with us during Story and Song!”

“Taako is my best friend,” Klaarg says very seriously. He evidently doesn’t notice Avi’s twitching lips, although Rowan shifts in front of him until he can fully compose himself.

“Right, and he’s going to help—” Angus is cut off by his stone of farspeech ringing cheerfully. He smiles apologetically and answers, walking to the edge of the yard. “Hello?”

“Hi Angus,” Ren says through the stone. “Where are you?”

“Neverwinter,” Angus explains, waving for them to continue with the pyre. “Where are you?”

“Still at the house, Neverwinter?” Ren asks suspiciously.

“Not exactly, ma’am,” Angus says. “We’re at Antonia’s shop.”

“Why?”

“Well, I tried to get Lord Artemis Sterling to help—”

“You did what?”

“He was useless,” Angus says plainly. “Mostly. We’re working on some sort of plan. I just got back from the stadium.”

He can hear Ren’s silent sigh through the stone. “Why were you at the stadium?”

“To pick up Klaarg.”

“Taako should be more careful about what he’s teaching you,” Ren says after a few beats.

“To be fair, ma’am,” Angus says with a grin. “I was like this before I met Taako.”

“Of course you were,” Ren says, the smile evident in her voice. “Well, I’m almost back to Neverwinter anyway, why don’t I meet yall there?”

“Are we sure this is going to work?” Brad says from the yard.

“Excuse me, Miss Ren,” Angus says politely. “I think they’re about to try another plan that isn’t going to work unless I help them.”

“Good luck,” Ren says dryly. “I’ll see yall soon.”

Angus bids her goodbye and walks in to see Carey insisting that yes, breaksliding into the fantasy tax prison is _definitely_ going to work, one hundred percent. Killian is grinning alongside her wife, nodding encouragingly, while Hurley is eyeing Sloane, who shrugs. Antonia and Keats are watching with similar delighted grins, while Rowan and Avi seem to be on Brad’s side.

“Angus,” Keats says, spotting him first. “What do you think?”

“You’ll have to give me something more specific, sir.”

The elf grins wider. “ _These_ lovely lesbians are planning on taking their battlewagon through the pyre, thus the size,” he says, pointing at Hurley and Sloane. “With _these other_ lovely lesbians on board for battle support,” pointing at Carey and Killian. “Meanwhile I, although not a lesbian—”

“Nobody’s perfect, dude,” Carey says.

“Am going to try and keep some of those agents off their back long enough for them to find your fam.”

Angus rolls his eyes. “We know that just throwing more people into fantasy tax prison isn’t going to work, right?”

“I’d like to be on this lesbian battlewagon, even though I also am not a lesbian,” Klaarg says, raising one huge paw like he’s in class.

“You’re in, big guy!” Killian says.

“It’s not gonna work,” Angus snaps, and at his tone they all straighten, looking to him as one (with the exception of Antonia, who looks in his general direction). “They’re just going to trap you too and it will be for nothing! And frankly, I’m tired of my family and friends being taken away!”

“That’s entirely fair, Angus,” Brad says soothingly.

Angus narrows his eyes at the magic humming through his words and shrugs off the Calm Emotions with a roll of his shoulders. “I may be young, but I’m not a little boy anymore,” he says, glaring at Brad.  “No more of that.”

“Right, I apologize,” Brad says, holding up his hands.

“What do you suggest, Ango?” Rowan asks.

Angus takes a deep breath. “It’s a bureaucracy, right?” he says, tapping his fingers against his wand as he thinks.

“The worst imaginable,” Keats says helpfully.

“Then they have to have paperwork,” Angus says. “A records room, probably. Keats, do you still have those blueprints?”

“Sure thing, bud,” Keats says, the massive scroll springing out of nowhere with a wave of his hand. It unrolls in front of the detective, hanging in the air as Angus inspects it.

“How accurate was it?”

“Not entirely,” Keats says. “We didn’t go directly into the kitchens, but we weren’t far.”

“Here,” Angus says, tapping at a spot on the map. He pulls out an engraved blue pen, one of Lucretia’s originals, and draws a neat circle surrounding the spot. “This whole section is labeled records. The battlewagon team—

“Team Lesbian,” Carey puts in.

“Sure. You could go through, but to cause a distraction, while Keats can go with Brad, Avi, Rowan, and me to find my family’s records and destroy them.” He leans back, capping the pen. “No records, no proof, they can’t hold them anymore.”

“Hold on there,” Avi says. “No way you can come with us.”

“Sir—”

“I dunno, I think he would be some help,” Keats says.

“No Avi is right,” Brad says. “Angus, we can’t risk you.”

“Sorry bud,” Killian says, Carey nodding next to her. “It’s a good plan though!”

“I can help!” Angus folds his arms, glaring at them all, and it’s a testament to him that they all lean back (again with the exception of Antonia). He learned from the best, after all. “This is stupid. Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

“The names, right?” Carey says with a shrug. “They were all blasted into our brains a few years back, how could we forget?”

“But hey, it’s a great plan,” Rowan says awkwardly as Hurley pats Angus on the shoulder and goes to get the battlewagon.

Sloane comes to stand next to him as the rest of them ready their preparations. Angus still has to crane his neck up to look at the tall dryad. Her hair is a rich dark green with the weight of late summer, her bark-like skin warm and alive as she slings an arm around Angus’s shoulders.

“Hey,” she whispers. “If this doesn’t work, ask Pan to help you fuck em up, yeah? His boyfriend’s already in there, if me and Hurls are too he won’t be too happy. Here,” and she holds out a closed hand. Angus holds his hands up and she drops a round, heavy brown seed, veined with green, into his palms.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Angus whispers back. “What is it?”

“A seed,” Sloane says dryly.

“Yes, ma’am, I see that much,” Angus says, just as dry.

The dryad laughs. “It’s a direct line to Pan,” she explains. “Since you’re not a cleric—”

“I’ve been thinking of multi-classing actually.”

“More than you already are?”

“A good detective is always prepared.”

“Drop earth on it anywhere you are and it’ll be a direct communication to Pan,” Sloane says as she grins. “And let him know if you decide on being a cleric for him, he’ll be delighted to hear it.”

“And it would really piss Merle off, ma’am.”

She snickers. “It would.”

“I’d like to go with Team Lesbian,” Antonia says as Sloane gives Angus one last squeeze and goes to join her wife.

“Hell yeah, babe,” Keats says.

“Aren’t you going with us?” Avi asks.

“I’ll set up a portal for you, but nah, I’m hanging with these ladies,” Keats, says, winking. “Besides, you don’t need my help to wreck shop in the records hall, right?”

“Nah,” Rowan says, leaning an elbow on Avi’s shoulders, smiling as Avi blushes. “We got this. You ready, ponytail?”

“I am, and thank you for noticing my ponytail,” Brad says, smiling.

“Comin through!” Hurley yells from the street. Antonia casts a hurried Enlarge on the opening in the fence as Hurley drives her battlewagon through. “Alright, whoever’s on Team Lesbian, hop on!”

Sloane swings her way up into her usual position, perched just over Hurley in the driver’s seat. Carey jumps off Killian’s shoulders and does a flip onto the top, looping a lazy arm around the railing. Killian boosts Antonia up before taking the gunner’s position, locking her giant crossbow into place, while Klaarg clambers up behind them all, morning star in hand.

“Hell yeah, let’s fuckin do this,” Keats says, slashing his modified scythe through the air and tearing open a portal for Brad, Avi, and Rowan.

“Mind going arm in arm?” Rowan asks Avi, who still hasn’t recovered from the last time Rowan made him blush. “I’d feel safer that way.”

“Uh, sure,” Avi coughs, cheeks reddening further. He adamantly refuses to look at Angus or Brad, both of whom are giving him thumbs up, or the horde of lesbians watching with delight from the battlewagon, or Keats, standing right in front of him and grinning ear to ear. “Ready?”

“I sure am,” Keats declares, swooping up into the air again. “Ladies?”

Hurley guns the engine in response.

“Klaarg?”

Klaarg roars.

“We’ll be back soon, Angus,” Brad says encouragingly.

“I very much doubt that, sir, but good luck.”

“Don’t try and follow us, Angus,” Killian calls from the battlewagon. “The pyre is going out right away.”

“Put away the crossbow, little man,” Carey advises.

Angus scowls and folds up his mini crossbow, slipping it back into its holster at his side.

“Lock my shop if you leave, please,” Antonia adds. She’s gripping the railing on the top of the battlewagon next to Carey and twirling her wand in her other hand, grinning fiercely and facing towards the pyre.

“Will do, ma’am.”

“Hey Ango, you wanna do the honors?” Keats asks.

Angus shrugs and aims, shooting off a powerful Fireball into the pyre. It catches immediately, dancing red and orange flames whooshing up into the air, crackling merrily. Keats does a flip midair and hovers in front of the fire, backlit by the flames. He waves the other group through his portal first, the portal zipping shut at Avi’s heels, and then the ancient elf turns to the battlewagon.

“Alright lesbians, let’s go lesbians!” he hollers, and dives through the flames, cackling as he goes.

“Woo!” Hurley yells, echoed by everyone else on board, and she guns it, the battlewagon springing forward and driving into the flames.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey it's been a hot second, huh? like almost a month? fuck. but! here we are i guess! sorry it's been so long, taakitz week was A Lot. updates might be slow during november as well cause of NaNo, but we'll see!
> 
> comments and kudos and you know the drill thank
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	8. in which everyone gets in a fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i split chapter seven into two parts, i think it's easier on folks to not have to read 10k at a time

_Neverwinter, Faerun_

As soon as they pass through, the fire goes out, leaving Angus abruptly alone in an empty yard. He sighs, left behind again, and slumps moodily against the pile of wood still in the yard. He fiddles with his wand, still warm from the Fireball, and glares at the burnt out pyre.

“Taako’s going to think I’m going to go into evocation,” he tells the empty air. “With all the Fireballs I’ve been casting today.”

“A few too many, I should say," a sneering voice says.

Angus whirls, on his feet at once, and backs towards the pyre. Peterwax’s mercenaries, a little more than singed after Angus’s spell at the stadium, are pushing their way into the yard. The leader, a large human with a scarred face and a nasty smile, advances on Angus, holding a short sword.

Angus backs away until his feet crunch on burned wood and ashes. There are six of them loosely arrayed behind the leader, all of them holding some nastily sharp weapon. The two in the back have crossbows trained on Angus, while one to his left holds a weighted net. Angus takes this all in with a brisk glance.

And smirks.

None of them are carrying wands.

“You were pretty rude to boss man, don’t you think?” the leader sneers, pointing his sword at Angus. “Not so tough now with all your friends gone.”

“Where did they go, anyway?” one of the others says, the rest nodding in agreement except for the leader.

“Yeah, they just drove a battlewagon into the fire!”

“You know,” Angus says with a shrug, running through his list of prepared spells. “Had places to be and all. Now, what’s Peterwax paying you? I live with the heroes of our world, sir, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Not enough money in the world,” the leader hisses. “Boss man wants you taken out for your insults, and I’ll tell you,” he grins, unpleasantly. “It will be my pleasure.”

“You do seem like that kind of person, _sir_ ,” Angus says, infusing the honorific with as much disgust as he can muster, which, having lived with the most dramatic people in the multiverse, is a fuckin’ lot. “I do also know a frost ogre named Jimmy who could fuck you up, sir.”

The leader snorts, jerking his head at the others, who slowly spread out around the yard, edging towards Angus with no small amount of trepidation. Angus resettles his grip on his wand.

“Are you sure about this, sir?”

“Oh yes,” the leader sneers.

“Alright,” Angus sighs, and casts Phantasmal Killer.

The leader fails his save and shrieks, dropping his sword and clawing at his head, screaming. He careens backward until he hits the fence, dropping in a heap and shuddering, high-pitched pained grunts emerging through clenched teeth. The rest of them look between the leader and Angus, who merely stares them down.

Unfortunately, they stride forward, brows furrowed in determination to avenge their fallen comrade, and Angus sighs again. He twirls his wand and targets the one with the net, casting Blight. The man seems to wither, dropping his net and collapsing, gasping feebly. While the rest are focused on him, Angus casts a casual Shield of Memory, a new Abjuration spell he developed with Lucretia, drawing on his happy memories with his new family. The shield expands in a faintly glowing sphere around him, shimmering purple and blue and red. He smiles faintly as the rest of them advance, visibly trembling now.

“We can stop this at any time, sirs,” he says patiently.

The ones with the crossbows yell in response and fire. Angus ducks, but both bolts are handily stopped by his shield. The one next to him, holding a stained scimitar, growls and swings down at the shield. It must have had magic engrained into the metal, because Angus’s shield breaks with a _pop_.

The man with the scimitar grins and advances as Angus stumbles, swinging down at his head. Angus jerks backwards, earning himself a slash to the shoulder instead of a beheading, turning it into a roll like Carey and Davenport taught him. He falls back into the ashes of the pyre, still clutching his wand.

The two other men, each holding two daggers, smirk and advance, flanking Angus. Angus waits patiently, breathing out the pain the way Magnus taught him, and then kicks out, catching the nearest one in the gut. He doubles over in pain while Angus spins up to one knee, leveling and firing his mini crossbow in one fluid motion, catching the man with the scimitar in the shoulder. He grunts in pain and stumbles backward.

The man with the daggers leaps forward, wrenching at Angus’s injured arm. Angus screams and attempts to channel Spirit Guardian, but the man knocks his wand away before he can finish the spell. He grins in Angus’s face and raises the dagger, only to be blasted from behind, the powerful spell sending him flying into the fence.

“Angus!” Ren is standing at the entrance, taking in the scene with horror, her rod out and smoking.

“Hi, Miss Ren,” Angus says, snatching up his wand and leveling a Scorching Ray at the man he had kicked in the stomach. The spell hits him and sends him tumbling head over heels, to land smoking and unconscious at Ren’s feet.

“Angus, you’re bleeding!” Ren says, casually kicking the mercenary away and rushing towards him.

“It’s alright, ma’am,” Angus says, although it does hurt quite a bit. “I’ve had worse.”

“Don’t matter,” Ren mutters, frowning as she guides him towards the shop, pulling out her stone. She settles him in a chair outside the shop and hands him the stone. “Call the militia while I go find a first aid kit. Ask them to send a healer too.”

Angus nods and does as she says while Ren bustles into the now-closed shop, emerging a few minutes later with a standard kit. She stops the bleeding before wrapping his shoulder with practiced hands. Among the sounds of the militia approaching, and the groaning of the mercenaries from the yard behind them, there’s a small, too-familiar _pop_.

And another.

And another.

And six more.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

 

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“Here we go lesbians, come on!” Keats yells.

They burst into the fantasy tax prison, Hurley performing an expert brakeslide that nearly slams them all into a wall until Keats slashes a stuttering portal. They bounce through before the portal splutters out, scattering into a huge open space, with various tunnels and openings leading off of it. Hurley spins the wheel, redoing her brakeslide with a whoop.

There’s no response.

The vast room is mostly empty, although there are some small groups in the distance who vaguely look up when they enter.

“Huh,” Killian says. “I thought there’d be more—”

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!”

A booming voice rings out through the space, and agents pour out of the tunnels into the open spaces, zooming towards them. The alert sounds through their open mouths as they descend on the battlewagon.

Keats grins. “Look out Celestial Plane, I got a bunch of lesbians with me!” he yells, swinging his scythe with glee at the nearest agent. “Can you handle us?!”

The agent spins and strikes out at Keats, who dodges easily as Klaarg and the rest leap into the fray. He hears Killian yell, “Uh, reaper dude? We don’t have our weapons anymore!”

“I don’t have my wand either,” Antonia calls. “I don’t need it, but I can’t channel spells!”

“Yeah, I shoulda warned ya,” Keats yells back. “They probably have em in holding or whatever. You’ll get it all back when you leave.”

“Are they gonna let us leave?” Carey demands, flipping from agent to agent and knocking them to the ground as she goes.

“Probably!”

“What do you mean probably?” Sloane demands, kicking at an agent who was crawling up the side of the battlewagon.

“Where is Taako?” Klaarg bellows, clearing agents with vast swipes of his paws.

Two agents appear on the outskirts of the melee, one holding a large book. The rest of the agents stop spouting the alert and fight on in eerie silence as the agent not holding the large book begins to speak.

“Greetings,” the agent declares, ignoring the fighting. “I am Agent Good. This is Agent Charlotte. Keats, Ward of the Raven Queen.”

“That’s me, dude!” Keats yells. “It’s just fucking Keats!”

“We do not have jurisdiction over you.”

“I know!”

Agent Charlotte continues. “Carey Fangbattle, you have seventeen counts of tax evasion and six counts of identity theft. Known associate of Scales Fangbattle, known tax evader.”

“Hell yeah, babe,” Killian says, high-fiving her wife as the dragonborn flips past her. “Agent at your six.”

“Thanks, hun,” Carey says, felling the agent sneaking up behind her with a quick slash.

“Killian, last name unknown,” Agent Good says.

“You’ll never find it,” Killian calls.

“You have forty-six counts of—

“Holy shit!”

“Forty-six counts of insurance fraud.”

“You know what, that’s fair,” Killian says with a shrug as she grabs Carey and fastball specials her into a group of agents, knocking them down like bowling pins.

“Lieutenant Hurley, also known as The Ram,” Agent Charlotte says.

“I’m going to arrest literally all of you!” Hurley yells.

“One count of identity theft—”

“ _When_?”

“Lack of permits during four years of illegal street racing, and seventy-eight counts of evading filing reports as a result of an alternate life as an illegal street racer.”

“We’re legit now,” Sloane says as she punches another agent off the battle wagon.

“Sloane, last name unknown, also known as The Raven,” Agent Good reads. “Thirty-two counts of resisting arrest—

“Not your jurisdiction!” Hurley yells.

“Lack of permits during five years of illegal street racing, and one hundred and four counts of fantasy tax evasion.”

Sloane just shrugs. “Don’t forget coming back from the dead.”

“No, we brokered that deal.”

“Oh,” Sloane and Hurley exchange a surprised glance. “Uh, thanks?”

“You’re welcome. The bugbear known alternately as,” Agent Charlotte pauses and glances at Agent Good. “Klaarg, and Daniel Butler. Eighteen counts of fantasy property tax evasion and six counts of lack of payment due to registered employees.”

Klaarg responds with another roar and tears through a dozen agents.

“Antonia, last name unknown,” Agent Good says.

“Blame the Wonderland liches,” Antonia calls.

“Sorry about that,” Keats murmurs to her as he swoops past. She momentarily pats him on the arm as he knocks an agent away from her.

“Four counts of fantasy tax evasion.”

“What, that’s it?” Antonia says as most of the others turn to look at her. “Huh.”

Agent Charlotte snaps the book shut and it disappears. “You will now cease fighting,” they say flatly.

“Like hell we will!” Keats says, swinging by and punching Agent Charlotte in the face.

Agents Good and Charlotte sigh in unison and snap their fingers. The agents in the midst of the fray suddenly have lengths of rope, which they quickly and efficiently wrap around the fighters, effectively ending the struggle. Keats is caught too, but soon allowed to go free, citing his “ward of the Raven Queen” status.

“Your companions are currently being apprehended,” Agent Good says flatly. “Keats, ward of the Raven Queen, it is time for you to depart.”

“Companions, what companions?” Antonia says, to various noises of agreement from the rest of them.

“Rowan Anderson, known ranger, Avi, operator of the cannonballs for the Bureau of Balance/Benevolence, and Brad Bradson.”

“Oh shit,” Killian says from under four agents.

“Indeed,” Agent Charlotte agrees. “You will be taken to the rest of your fellows.”

Amid protests and several agents menacing Keats into opening a portal, Agents Good and Charlotte snap again, and they all vanish.

 

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

Brad leads the way down the winding hallways of the tunnels near the records room, Avi and Rowan trailing him. For all Rowan talked about his dex being shot to hell in Wonderland, the ranger is still entirely silent, leaving Avi feeling like a rampaging elephant beside him. They’re still arm in arm, and every time Avi turns to glance behind them he catches Rowan smiling at him.

“Uhh, so, what’s it like being a guard?” he asks, trying to keep his voice down.

“Depends on the day,” Rowan says with a shrug that Avi feels. “Some days, it’s boring as hell, and others, like today,” he grins. “It’s excellent.”

“I support this, but you too might want to keep it down,” Brad calls quietly.

Avi reddens, and Rowan does too, behind his elegant red and silver beard. He meets Avi’s eyes and grins, pulling him closer with an arm around his shoulder. “Well, if we shouldn’t talk,” he whispers.

“Is this really the best time?” Brad says as patiently as possible, stopping so suddenly that they almost run into him.

“No, it is not,” a monotone voice says from behind them.

“Oh fuck,” Avi says as they all turn.

There are three agents arrayed behind them. One steps forward. “I am Agent Panic, this is Agent At’the, and this is Agent Disco.”

Avi and Rowan exchange confused glances while Brad bursts into surprised laughter. “Oh, um, excuse me,” he says, stifling it hastily as everyone turns to look at him. “Sorry, please go on,” he says politely, covering his broad smile with a hand.

“This way,” Agent Panic says, as Agents At’the and Disco circle around to the other side.

Rowan reaches for his longbow only to find it gone. Avi and Brad check for their weapons as well, to find the same result. Avi shrugs at Rowan who shrugs at Brad, and they follow the agent, the other two at their backs.

The three agents lead them past a vast room filled with filing cabinets that stretch as far as any eye can see, agents flitting among them. Avi winces. “At least we were close?” he says in a low voice.

“Very close,” Brad says consolingly.

Rowan just squeezes with the arm still around Avi’s shoulder.

“Not really,” Agent At’the says.

“Nor were your compatriots,” Agent Disco says.

“Let me go!” they hear a shout from ahead of them.

“Put him down, _now_.”

“That was the Director,” Brad says sharply. He speeds up towards the sound. The agents share a barely susceptible frown and match his speed, pushing along Avi and Rowan.

“Get em, Ghost Rider!” comes another cry.

“Uh, Lup, on your left—”

“Got it, babe.”

They arrive to a scene of moderate chaos, although nothing compared to the straight-up battle they now hear coming from the central room, with the shouts of Carey and Killian and a revving battlewagon clearly audible even from a distance. The room they enter seems to be a break room or a relaxation room of some sort, with pool tables and a ski ball machine. It’s full of several non-agents, fellow prisoners most likely (including a dwarf that looks like Merle if he were female and much more intimidating). It’s also full of several agents with tight grips on Davenport, Lucretia, and Barry. Kravitz and Lup are still fighting them off, both in their reaper and lich forms, respectively.

“Remain here,” Agent Panic says sternly.

Agents At’the and Disco follow Agent Panic into the fray, two of them leaping onto Kravitz just as he was blocking a strike from another agent. The reaper goes down with a grunt as Lup yells and kicks Agent Disco in the head. Lup is then leapt on by half a dozen other agents, sending her to the ground.

“Lup, are you alright?” Davenport asks.

“Fine, Cap, just under these fuckers,” comes the answer.

“They were attempting to break into the records room,” one agent tells Agent Panic.

“Thank you, Agent Simple. Where is your partner, Agent Plan?”

Agent Simple points at the pile on top of Lup. “In there.”

Both agents pointedly ignore Lucretia’s desperate attempt to hide her laughter with both hands held behind her back, as well as the laughter, muffled or not, coming from everyone except Avi and Rowan.

“Do you know why they’re laughing?” Avi whispers to Rowan.

“No idea.”

“We will return them to their fellows at the cafeteria,” Agent Panic announces. “Along with these three intruders,” with a wave of their hand to indicate Brad, Avi, and Rowan. “And those who attempted to use our visitation system to interfere.”

“Brad, Avi,” Lucretia says, catching sight of them. “What happened?”

“Who are they talking about?” Davenport asks.

“Uh, pretty much everybody,” Avi says with a shrug, and then in a blink they’re in the cafeteria, the mass of agents joining seamlessly with those surrounding a very bored Taako, Magnus, and Merle.

“Well tits,” Magnus says.

“Shit,” Taako and Merle agree in unison.

“Sorry, dove,” Kravitz says, still glaring at the agents holding his arms. “It didn’t work out so well.”

“Do what I’m doing, my man, treat it like a vacay.”

A beat and then the number of people in the room increases, not even counting the agents. Klaarg grins when he spots Taako, gently putting Antonia back on her feet and starting forward before he’s stopped by another three agents. Carey and Killian wave Lucretia and Magnus in particular, calling apologies and explanations.

The room is very rapidly chaos with everyone noticing everybody else, with Magnus shouting about jerky when he notices Rowan to Merle making a suggestive face towards Avi until Taako swats him. Taako then sees Hurley and Sloane and starts yelling to them, while Rowan notices Antonia and calls a greeting to her. These and multiple other commentaries start flying, filling the room with noise.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Davenport roars finally, bringing every conversation to a halt. He looks around at them all, meeting every individual’s eyes one by one. “Alright,” he says calmly. “We can greet each other and catch each other up on what’s going on, _after_ ,” he emphasizes the word. “These _agents_ release us.”

“There is further sentencing to do,” Agent Panic says. They turn to Brad, Rowan, and Avi. “Brad Bradson.”

“Hello friend,” Brad says warmly.

“You have fourteen counts of failing to file proper permits during the construction of the Bureau of Balance moon base, as well as eighty-one counts of fantasy tax misfiling.”

“Oh dear, I am very sorry about that,” Brad starts.

“You also,” and Agent Panic waves a hand, conjuring a small picture. “Have forty-nine counts of fantasy tax evasion when you were going as one ‘Brad Bloodeye, Scourge of the Southern Wastes, Doom of the Human Infestation’.”

The image shows a much younger and much different Brad, with half a dozen piercings scattered over his snarling face, what looks like a teardrop tattoo under one eye, and wildly spiky black hair, a far cry from his current neat ponytail.

“Brad,” Taako says slowly, delighted. “You have _got_ to show me how you got that eyeliner so on point.”

“Well Taako, it’s been a few years, but I’m sure I remember some things.”

“Rowan Anderson, known ranger,” Agent At’the says. “Sixty-seven counts of fantasy tax evasion.”

“No!” Magnus calls. “He’s my jerky buddy!”

“Avi, operator of the cannonballs for the Bureau of Balance/Benevolence,” Agent Disco says. “Twenty-two counts of fantasy tax misfiling, as well as property fraud.”

“When did I own property?” Avi mutters, smiling when Rowan grins at his side.

“The rules have been made clear to your fellow prisoners,” Agent Panic says, almost sounding bored. “They are also available upon request.”

Without another word, Agent Panic, and all the rest of the agents in the room, are gone. The room is still fairly full, given just how many people were involved in this particular rescue attempt. Magnus comes over to join Rowan and Avi, while Brad goes to explain what exactly happened to Lucretia, who is glaring at him. Davenport mediates as Lucretia demands to know what exactly they did with Angus, while Merle leans back in one of the chairs and keeps trying to pull Davenport over.

Taako meanwhile goes to join his sister, brother-in-law, and husband, wrapping long arms around them and teasing them for fucking up the stealth mission so bad. He’s quickly interrupted by Klaarg, who swoops in and grabs him enthusiastically, telling him all about the new tea he wanted to bring when Angus enlisted his services.

Team Lesbian chats among themselves, Carey and Killian talking excitedly about battlewagon races they’ve seen while Hurley and Sloane counter with their favorite Team Sweet Flips moves. Sloane is particularly excited about the fastball special.

Antonia smiles and carefully makes her way through the scattered tables and chairs left from the impromptu bleachers, winding through until she reaches an embarrassed Brad and an annoyed Lucretia, Davenport having given up and allowed Merle to pull him into a seat to watch the still moderate chaos.

“Hello,” she says quietly, stepping into the flow of Lucretia’s comments.

“He’s _fifteen_ , he’s not— oh, hello,” Lucretia says, turning to Antonia. “Excuse me just a moment.”

“He’s quite all right, Lucretia,” Brad says soothingly. “Ren was almost to Neverwinter when we left, he wouldn’t have been on his own for more than fifteen minutes.”

“He’s a tough kid,” Antonia adds. “He gets his humor from you.”

“Not entirely,” Lucretia says wryly. “He had plenty of his own before he investigated my secret organization.”

“And you hired him?” Antonia asks, raising one purple eyebrow over her red linen. “How old was he at the time?”

“Ten.”

“You hired a ten-year-old?” Antonia hoots, Brad carefully slipping away with a grateful smile. “Why?”

“That ten-year-old is the world’s greatest detective,” Lucretia retorts, but she’s smiling. “He almost figured everything out _before_ we inoculated him. Besides,” and she shrugs, although realizing a beat later Antonia couldn’t see it. “Oh, I’m sorry—”

“You shrugged, right?”

“I, yes—”

“I can hear it in your voice,” Antonia tells her with a smile of her own.

“I see.”

“And now you’re smiling really widely.”

“Well,” Lucretia says, pulling her smile in. “Anyway, he was investigating serial killers and gangs before he started investigating the Bureau. He was safer up on the moon base.”

“Huh,” Antonia says thoughtfully. “Alright, you got me there.”

“I give it another three hours before the purple-haired one kisses Lucy,” Merle says to Davenport, grinning behind his beard.

“I’ll take that bet,” Davenport says. He waves to get Kravitz’s attention.

“Aw, Dav.”

“C’mon, Merle, we gotta let the whole gang in on this action.”

“You’re just gonna end up owin’ ol Merle a whole lotta gold,” Merle says with a shrug.

Antonia and Lucretia continue on, ignoring the gathering group behind them, the muttering and mild arguments and Taako insisting that it’ll never happen. They can almost forget they’re in fantasy tax prison, until Magnus stops dead, interrupting Brad making a comprehensive tally of who’s betting what.

“Hold on,” he says.

“What is it, bud?” Barry asks.

“We gotta get Keats and Ango in this.”

“Give it a few,” Killian says. “They’re probably working out a way to join us right now.”


	9. in which Ren is sensible, Merle hatches a plan, and Angus goes as high as he can go

_Neverwinter, Faerun_

“Angus, at least let Healer Holdsworth see to your shoulder,” Ren says.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” Angus says, more concerned with glaring down at the pile of business cards in his hands.

Ren sighs and snatches the cards from his hands, fanning them out, shuffling them, stacking them in a neat pile, and tucking them into Angus’s pocket before he can stop spluttering, ignoring his glare. “I’m taking you back with me to Refuge.”

“All due respect, ma’am, I’m not just going to give up—”

“Now, who said anything about giving up?” Ren says tartly. “Seems to me like Refuge is a pretty good place to go since other, more _earthly_ methods of help haven’t worked out so well.”

Angus nods thoughtfully, glare easing into his thinking face, and Ren glances at the militia captain, who is busy sending other militia members to secure the ruffians from Peterwax. The goons are in various stages of shock thanks to Angus and Ren, which neither one of them bothers to feel guilty about. “Can I take him home or do you need a statement?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, you’re fine, thank you,” the captain says.

“Um, excuse me, ma’am?” a nearby private asks.

“Yes?”

“Was it you who cast that Thunderwave?”

“Sure was.” The assembled militia members break out in impressed murmurs, drawing a proud smile from Ren. She nods and waves and shepherds Angus back towards the street. He walks absently, feet carrying him towards home, chewing on his lip as he thinks.

“The road towards Refuge is that way—”

“We can just use the portal room, ma’am,” Angus interrupts. “It’s a direct line to the Davy Lamp, isn’t it? And besides, I want to get something from Taako’s room.”

“Oh, I don’t think he would much like us going through his things, Angus.”

“I do it all the time,” Angus says with a shrug, leading the way more actively now. “He notices maybe half the time? If that. I’ve had his Candlenights sweater from Lady Istus for four months now and he still thinks Lup took it.”

Ren grins. “I think he has your Glasses of Lightning Comprehension.”

“ _He does_?”

Ren grins wider as Angus growls. “I figured you knew.”

“I’ve been looking for those for a _month_! Maybe I shouldn’t save them from fantasy tax prison.”

“Now, that’s not very nice of you,” Ren says reproachfully as they approach Taako and Kravitz’s neighborhood.

“No, but it would be a power move, ma’am.”

They make their way to Taako and Kravitz’s house. It still smells faintly of the curry that Taako and Lup had been making, robes and shoes and other detritus, magical and not, still scattered around. Magnus left a few sticks of yew and pine lying near the back door, but other than that, the house is unnervingly empty.

“Feels weird to be in here when no one else is,” Ren murmurs.

“A little,” Angus says, already heading up the stairs. “Okay, Miss Ren, if I’m not back in fifteen minutes, dive in after me. The closet may have eaten me and I’ll never get the glitter off ever again.”

“Good luck!”

“Thanks, ma’am!”

Fortunately, Angus is well familiar with the intricacies and pitfalls of Taako’s closet, and emerges safely well within the fifteen-minute window. He’s carrying Taako’s favorite scarf (knitted by either Lady Istus or Magnus, no one can quite agree), one of Merle’s abominable fanny packs that Taako stole with the intent to burn it and then promptly forgot, and one of Magnus’s red kerchiefs.

He’s also carrying a small compact mirror.

“What’s that?” Ren asks, zeroing in on the compact. “It doesn’t seem quite… elaborate enough, to fit Taako’s style.”

“It’s okay ma’am, you can say flaming garbage pile,” Angus says, dropping the other objects in a heap next to the door to the portal room and flipping open the compact, revealing the smooth emerald surface. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

There’s silence for a moment, and then a confused voice, thick with sleep, floats out of the mirror. “Uh, hello? Who is this?”

“Hi, Joaquin.”

“Oh, Angus!” Joaquin blinks at him from the mirror, rubbing absently at the pillow crease on his cheek. “What’s up, little man? Why do y’all always call me at four in the morning?”

“Sorry, Joaquin. Oh, let me introduce you to Miss Ren!”

Ren waves, a little awkwardly, as Angus turns the mirror towards her. “Uh, hi?”

“Whoa, shit, elves can be purple?”

“Joaquin,” Angus says severely as Ren blushes. “Don’t be rude.”

“Oh, sorry. So, uh, what’s up? Where’s Taako? And can we, uhh, maybe figure out how the time difference works between planes?”

“Taako’s in jail.”

“What’d they get him for this time?”

“Fantasy tax evasion.”

“Shit, that’s a thing?”

“Yeah, and they’ve taken almost _everybody_ ,” Angus says. “Can you help?”

“Oh, boy, Ango, I dunno.” Shifting sounds come from the mirror and a light flicks on behind Joaquin’s face. “Good thing my boyfriend is a heavy sleeper, huh?”

“How’s Marcus doing?”

“He’s good, he’s good.” Mumbled conversation, and then the perspective through the mirror shifts as Joaquin gets out of bed and stumbles towards the kitchen. “What exactly do you want me to do, chico?”

“You’re in the Plane of Thought, you must know something about taxes.”

“Angus, I work at a food truck that’s questionably legal at the best of times, I’m maybe not the best person to ask about taxes.”

“Are you sure?” Angus says, striving to keep the wobble out of his voice.

“Oh, hey, hermano, it’s okay,” Joaquin says gently, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Look, Marcus’s uncle’s an accountant, I can check in with him during business hours and see what I can find out?”

“Okay,” Angus says, nodding firmly. “Thank you, Joaquin.”

“Sure thing, buddy. Can I, uh, go back to sleep?”

“Oh, yeah, of course! Sorry for waking you.”

Joaquin nods as Angus gently closes the compact. Angus looks up at a confused and still blushing Ren. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ren says. “Why were you talkin to a guy through a mirror?”

“He’s Taako’s friend, from the Day? He taught Taako how to make tacos.”

“Huh.”

“C’mon, ma’am,” Angus says, gathering up the scattered pieces of clothing. “Let’s go.”

 

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“Everyone seems kinda down,” Merle observes to Davenport as they play an idle game of Yooker.

The whole group, swollen far beyond just the members of the IPRE, is sprawled in various places around the huge main room. The reaper squad plus Taako are playing some sort of game with the half-elves they met, Charm and Shell, as well as the rest of their friends, although the human Ned has disappeared. Klaarg hangs around nearby, occasionally yelling at the distant agents to give him back his tea. Magnus and Brad are talking with Rowan and Avi, the latter two hand in hand, while Team Lesbian is playing an improvised version of volleyball, maybe, without a net. Hurley and Sloane’s battlewagon was confiscated at some point, although no one had actually seen it happen, but they’re making do just fine. Antonia, choosing not to get smacked in the face unnecessarily, has drawn Lucretia into further conversation, not far from where Davenport and Merle are sitting.

“Are you just mad because y-you lost the bet, Merle?”

“What? No! We have no way of telling time in here, Dav, I could still be right.”

“No you can’t.”

“But anyway,” Merle persists. “Doesn’t everyone seem a little down?”

He’s not wrong. There’s an air of despondency over the expansive crowd. Keats hasn’t been back, or even heard from, and everyone is grouped rather more closely together than would be expected.

“Can you try anything?” Davenport asks.

“Like what?”

“We’re in the Celestial Plane. You’re a _cleric_ , Merle, can’t you call on Pan?”

“Anti-magic field, buddy,” Merle says, waving his soulwood arm. “There’s enough juice to power my arm but I can’t connect to Pan directly. Bad reception. But!” he grins, in that too-familiar way that tells Davenport he’s about to have a very bad idea. “I can—”

“Don’t start d-dancing, Merle.”

The dwarf deflates, glaring at Davenport from his one eye, and then perks right up again. “Well fine, Skipper. But I have _another_ idea!”

He pulls the gnome up and starts walking, waving to Lucretia, the only person who looks up when they leave.

“What are you doing, Merle?” she calls.

“Don’t worry about it, Lucy!”

“Oh no,” Lucretia says flatly as Antonia laughs.

“It’ll be fine,” the elf says comfortably, turning her linen-covered lack of eyes towards Lucretia, the visible skin crinkling as she smiles. “He’s more capable than people think.”

“They’re both extremely capable, despite all evidence to the contrary,”

“So are you, clearly.”

“You’re very forward, aren’t you? And Rowan, with Avi.”

“Well, what can I say? After… you know, we both agreed that we weren’t going to wait if we saw something, or someone, we wanted. Life’s too short.”

Lucretia hums but doesn’t respond to that, gently but firmly turning her head back. “You’re going to mess up the braid.”

“Where did you learn to do this anyway?” Antonia asks, obligingly turning her head forward again. “This feels way more complicated than a simple braid.”

Lucretia’s fingers still for a moment, lightly resting on the dark purple strands, before resuming their work. “The twins taught me this one,” she says quietly.

“Hey, can I ask?”

“Can I stop you?”

“Probably not. We all heard the Story, on the Day. You all seemed so _close_  with each other, I can’t even imagine being that close to someone. But seeing,” she stops, laughing, more than a touch of bitterness in her voice. “Well, in a manner of speaking anyway. “Seeing” the way you all interact, especially your captain and Taako with you, well… what happened?”

Lucretia doesn’t say anything for long moments, her fingers working almost on autopilot.

“You’re gotten tense,” Antonia observes.

“Feel that in my fingers, do you?”

“Literally every part of your presence is screaming tension.”

“That’s fair.” Lucretia continues the complicated braiding she’s begun, thinking idly that it was always easier with more hands, but she can’t even cast a simple Mage Hand in this place. “It’s… hmm, it’s complicated.”

“Course it is.”

“Well,” Lucretia smiles without humor. “Yes. You know about the voidfish.”

“Yeah, it was in the broadcast.”

“I erased my family’s memories,” Lucretia says, flat. “Every memory of our journey, and the Hunger, and the relics we made with the Light.” She continues, staring at Antonia’s braids without seeing them. She weaves in a strand of white, sharp against the dark purple, another remnant of Wonderland’s spite. “I took the memory of Lup away from Taako and Barry.”

Antonia inhales sharply, but Lucretia isn’t done.

“I reduced my captain to a shell of himself,” she says. “Barely able to say more than his own name. I found out my best friend was trapped in an umbrella and I was too cowardly to set her free. I went into Wonderland because I was proud enough to believe I could handle it, gave up twenty years of my life among half a dozen other things, and left a man to die just so I could escape. I—”

She’s interrupted from this litany of sins by Antonia turning entirely, pulling her hair out of Lucretia’s grasp. Antonia picks up her hands, still up, and presses them gently together. If she still had eyes, they would be holding Lucretia’s as she leans in.

“Listen,” she says quietly, her voice sharp. “Lucretia, I can’t see, so you have to tell me. Are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re not a bad person.”

“Lucretia scoffs, but Antonia presses a finger against her lips.

“I’m not done,” she says firmly. “I heard the Story, but I can’t say I _know_  you, not yet, but from everything you wrote? Everything you did? The people who are – yes, _are_  your family, I feel you rolling your eyes – they still love you, Lucretia. I can feel it. You may have done some bad things, but,” she stops, the bitterness creeping back into her voice. “Haven’t we all?”

“Perhaps, but—”

“I would have died in Wonderland if you hadn’t sent Taako, Magnus, and Merle in,” Antonia says. “There wasn’t another option.”

“Maybe,” Lucretia says quietly.

“I feel the guilt you carry,” Antonia says, equally quiet. “You don’t think I feel guilt too, for what I did in there?”

Lucretia doesn’t respond, trying to hold back more pointless tears, well aware that almost everyone she knows is within a few feet of her and would see if she had a breakdown in the middle of the floor in goddamn fantasy tax jail.

“You’re allowed to be angry.”

“What?”

“At them.”

“My family?”

“No. Well, I don’t know. That’s not something I can make a judgement on. At the Wonderland liches.”

Lucretia sighs. “Sometimes, a bit, but…”

“Don’t tell me you think you deserve it.”

Lucretia doesn’t say anything.

“Listen,” Antonia says, her hand cupping Lucretia’s face. “We were all in a pretty dark place. But now we’ve stepped out into the light again. Well,” she grimaces, drawing a weak chuckle from Lucretia. “In a manner of speaking. I miss my eyes, I miss my vitality, I miss… the other things they took from me. But what we do now is make amends as best we can, and move on, and do some good with the rest of our lives.” She leans forward until her forehead is resting against Lucretia’s. “And I for one think we’re pretty baller.”

This draws an actual laugh from Lucretia. “You pick that up from Carey and Killian?”

“Do you _know_  how much you used the term baller in your journals? I think half of Faerun has that in their vocabulary at this point, whether they like it or not.”

“Well shit,” Lucretia says in her best gravitas. “That’s _not_  one of my many regrets.”

“Just kiss already!” Lup yells from the game board, evidentially not having heard literally anything that had just happened. “My time slot’s almost up.”

“Time slot?”

“They have a betting pool,” Lucretia says.

“How do you know?”

“They apparently think I can’t hear something going on _directly behind me_  when I’m talking to a pretty girl.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?”

“Don’t listen to her, Antonia!” Magnus yells. “She got murdered one cycle cause she was too gay for a mermaid!”

“ _Listen_ ,” Lucretia begins, face flushing a dark red.

“Now you _have_  to tell me that story.”

“It was in the journals.”

“Oh no, I want it straight – or gay, rather – from the source.”

Lup smiles, watching Lucretia being pulled out of yet another spiral of guilt and shame, and turns back to the game.

“Okay,” she says, slapping down a white card. “There’s no _fucking_ way this one won’t win.”

“I don’t know if I want to know,” Barry says, head on her shoulder as he looks through his cards.

“Come on,” Charm says, waving the black card. “I desperately want to know why I’m sticky.”

“Are you sure about that?” Taako asks with a smirk. He glances over at Shell. “Now, is Shell your given name, darling?”

“What kind of shell is it?” Magnus calls.

“Bold words for an elf named after a food,” Shell says without looking up from their cards. They also return Lup’s high-five without looking up.

“Hey!”

“Got em!” Lup says delightedly.

“Bones, help me out here,” Taako complains, barely twisting in his comfortable seat in Kravitz’s lap.

“They got you there, love,” Kravitz says, handing Taako his white card. “Don’t look.”

“I would never!” Taako says, flattening a hand over his chest as he blatantly looks at Kravitz’s card. “How dare you.”

Eventually they all throw in a white card, Shell grinning proudly as they put down their white card last of all, and Charm starts turning them over.

“Being a motherfucking sorcerer, inaccurate but go off I guess, bees?”

Everyone in unison chants: “Bees?”

“The homosexual agenda, mood, grave robbing, gross, fantasy Michelle Obama’s arms, Mage Hand, fuck off Lee, and drinking alone.”

“Wait, is fuck off Lee a card?”

“No,” Lee grins. “She just hates it when I play that card.”

“It’s excellent, I want it for ours, Krav.”

“Can you just make up white cards?”

“Hell yeah you can, ghost rider,” Lup says, flopping over onto Barry. “Pick a white card, Charm.”

“Hold on, I have to really think about this.”

“It’s hard to beat bees?” Shell says.

“We all know I’m not picking Mage Hand.”

“Aw, what?”

“It’s not sticky, Lee! It’s just gross!”

“Fantasy Michelle Obama’s arms though,” Woof says.

“Maybe, maybe. Grave robbing is very good…”

“Not as sticky as you would think, normally,” Barry says.

“Gross.”

“No no, he’s right,” Lup says.

“Grave robbing isn’t necromancy but it also is strictly frowned upon, Bluejeans.”

“Remind me not to tell him about how we made wands out of our own bones, Lup.”

“ _You did what_?”

“We had consent!”

“ _It doesn’t count if you were dead_!”

“Why not?”

“Okay,” Charm announces. “I gotta go with grave robbing. Whose was it?”

“Thank you,” Kravitz says, holding out his hand for the black card, to accompanying shrieks and yells from literally everyone in the game.

“I can’t believe they started fantasy Cards Against Humanity without me,” Magnus says mournfully.

“They tried to get you in on it but you were telling us about your dogs,” Brad says.

“They’re good dogs, Brent.”

“I thought his name is Brad,” Rowan says.

“Hey, jerky buddy, you got any jerky or did they take that from you too?”

“They took everything,” Avi says.

“Well, not everything,” Rowan says, slinging an arm around a blushing Avi’s shoulders.

“When did this all start?” Magnus says, propping up his chain on his hands and grinning. “Wink!”

Brad, patting his pockets for something, looks up. “Did he just say wink or did he actually wink?”

“Both.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mags,” Avi says.

“What are you looking for, Brad?” Rowan asks.

“My notes,” Brad says thoughtfully, still patting at his pockets. “Oh, I do hope Dracula is going to be alright without me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rowan says slowly. “Did you say Dracula?”

“Yeah he works with Brad now,” Magnus says. “After we un-vampired him.”

“There’s…” Rowan pauses. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”

“Yeah. Hey what the fuck are Merle and Cap’nport doing?”

Indeed, Merle and Davenport are back from wherever they had gone, Merle pulling Davenport along. The captain has a long-suffering look on his face, one that’s intimately familiar to the entire crew, while Merle looks entirely too pleased with himself.

“I got this,” he announces, drawing the attention of everyone nearby, including a few of their non-family members, extended or otherwise. Among them are some more familiar faces, including Cinder and the deposed former king Scald, who both crowd near Magnus.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were in here!” Magnus says brightly.

“Oh yeah,” Cinder says, voice high pitched from lack of fuel. “These guys got jurisdiction over _all_  the planes. Hey, where’s King Wrathfang?”

“The Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom? Wherever the weapons are, I guess.”

“Aw man.”

“Yeah, it’s super weird!”

“Queen Ashpine’s not gonna be too happy with that.”

“What exactly do you got, Merle?” Carey interrupts from where she’s riding on Killian’s shoulders.

“A plan!”

“Oh no,” Taako and Lup say together, while Lucretia’s hand makes an audible smack as it hits her forehead.

“You might have heard of this little trick from Lucy’s journals,” Merle says, pulling off his shirt to a chorus of yells.

“No, no, fuck off old man!” Taako yells.

“Put your shirt back on, Merle!” Magnus adds.

“Merle,” Lucretia says in her best Director voice. The rest of the BoB members join in, staring at the now-shirtless dwarf and say, in chorus with Lucretia: “This is the nightmare scenario.”

“What, it’s traditional!” Merle complains, but finally does put his shirt back on before sitting cross-legged on the ground. As they all watch, his form turns to drifting smoke, swirling lazily in a vague dwarf shape.

Merle pops back into a blank white space, utterly devoid of anything except for The Head, who stares at Merle, eyebrows slowly rising.

“Hey there—”

“No.”

Not two seconds later, from the onlookers’ perspective, he pops back into view.

“Did you just try to use Parlay?” Lup demands.

“Huh,” Merle says, standing up. “First time I got outta there without dying.”

“What happened?” Davenport asks.

“Well, I popped into the Head’s office, but all I said was hi before the Head said “No” and I popped right back out!”

“That actually wasn’t a horrible idea,” Barry says.

“It’s okay, I have another one,” Merle says, grinning and entirely ignoring Davenport’s long, sustained groan.

“Merle, please. No d-dancing, breaking into the records room again didn’t work—”

“Is that what you tried to do?” Antonia asks, grinning.

“And Parlay didn’t work.”

“Don’t ask what’s next, please,” Hurley and Sloane say in unison.

“What’s next?” Brad asks pleasantly, ignoring everyone else groaning.

“Well, it’s a surprise!” Merle says. “I gotta find someone who can hook me up with the goods.”

“The goods?” Lup asks, laughing. “What are the _goods_ , Merle?”

“You know, the goods!” Merle says. “There’s always someone in every prison who can get you the stuff you can’t get anywhere else.”

“Some black-market shit, homie, nice,” Taako says.

“How do you even know that, Merle?” Magnus mutters.

“You think this is the first time I’ve ever been in prison?”

“I’ve been _in_  prison with you Merle!”

“Yeah, yeah, so, pointy hat, ask Dupree.”

“Are you talking about the fucking t-rex thing I do?”

“You do a t-rex thing?” Kravitz asks, with only mild surprise.

“Yeah, for sure, it’s rad. No wand, Merle.”

“And an anti-magic field,” Lucretia adds.

“I might know someone who knows someone,” an unmistakably familiar voice calls.

“Oh shit!” Carey and Killian say together.

The crowd parts to reveal a familiar halfling girl, her rich brown skin shining like it never was when they knew her in her robot body, bright red hair tied back in neat braids.

“I know someone,” Noelle Redcheek says, smiling like the sun. “His name is Adam Abingdam.”

 

_Refuge, Faerun_

“At least sit for two seconds,” Ren says, exasperated. “And let me see to that shoulder.”

“It’s not that far of a walk,” Angus says, slouching on the barstool.

“How many did you take out again?” June asks with a grin, sliding Angus what is hopefully a sarsaparilla. She’s dressed in dark clothing not unlike Carey’s, a habit she got into upon taking rogue lessons with the dragonborn and Davenport.

“Six.”

“How many were there?”

“Seven.”

“Not a bad KD ratio.”

Angus shrugs, sipping at his sarsaparilla. “June, do you know anything about taxes?”

“Nope.”

“Shit.”

“Angus,” Ren says reprovingly, poking her head out of the kitchen and fixing Angus with a stern look. Angus just shrugs again.

“You could ask Paloma?” June suggests, suddenly on top of the counter.

“Is Paloma secretly a tax lawyer?”

“She might be persuaded to give you a prophecy.”

“I don’t have any diamonds.”

“Well, if you want to make a bet, perhaps,” Ash calls from their regular table. Their goliath friend grins, putting up his hand for arm wrestling.

“Um, thanks, but I don’t think I want to get my arm broken,” Angus says politely.

“My daddy knew something about taxes,” June says thoughtfully. “I can see if he left any notes in his things.”

“Jack did have a head for business,” Ren agrees, emerging from the kitchen with some warm open-faced sandwiches, sliding them along the bar to Angus and June. “We could even ask Isaak, that snake.”

“You’d be better off asking the Purple Worm,” June says, rolling her eyes.

“He was under a thrall,” Angus says delicately.

June’s eyes are flat, as they are whenever the topic of the Chalice or any of the Relics comes up, and she doesn’t answer, turning away to clean some already clean glasses.

“I’m sorry,” Angus tries, but she just shrugs without turning around.

Ren just gives him a slight shake of her head, gesturing to his sandwich. “Did your, uh, your friend in the mirror say anything?”

“Joaquin? Not yet.”

This is enough to make June turn around again, eyes curious, but before she can say anything, a thick arm comes down around Angus’s shoulders, making him jump.

“Well hey there little gerblin!” Cassidy booms, her ill-fitting town elder suit ripping a little bit more at the seams as she thumps down on the bar stool next to Angus. “How ya doing!”

“Hi, Mayor Cassidy.”

“Heard yall were having some trouble!”

“Almost my entire family has gotten kidnapped by fantasy tax agents.”

Cassidy nods seriously and leans in, her quiet voice approximately as loud as Angus’s shouting. “You want me to work in some 'splosions for ya?”

“I don’t think that would work, ma’am,” Angus says. “But maybe that will be plan C.”

“Do you have a plan B?” comes Roswell’s voice as the bird sheriff flutters down to rest on the bar next to Angus.

“Hello, Sheriff,” Angus says, and glances up at Ren. “Miss Ren actually had the idea.”

“Is good idea,” a distinctive voice says, and the group turns to see the tiny form of Paloma enter the Davy Lamp, carrying a basket that smells amazing and also a war hammer that is the size of Angus’s entire body.

“Hello, ma’am,” Angus says. “Why do you have a war hammer?”

The little woman smiles at Angus. “Not just prophecies, Angus, no, no.”

“Um—”

“You will need one other, for your plan to have a chance at success,” the witch interrupts.

“What plan?” Roswell asks.

“Ma’am?” Angus says, looking to Ren.

“Well,” Ren says, shoulders straight. She’s gotten much more confident since she started dealing with Taako’s regular bullshit, Angus thinks, and she wasn’t lacking entirely in confidence before. “We haven’t been having much luck with the whole sendin people in thing, so I figure, why not go a little higher?”

“Like, to the top of a mountain?” Cassidy asks.

“ _Oh_ ,” June says, beginning to smile.

“No,” Ren says, gesturing to Angus, who picks up the plan.

“We mean the gods,” Angus says, grinning. He turns to Paloma, who is also grinning, her massive war hammer slung over her tiny shoulder. “Who else do we need, ma’am?”

“The eternal child,” Paloma says, voice solemn. “The dark curve of the raven’s wing.”

“Boy, haven’t heard that one in a while,” a sheepish voice says.

“There he is,” the witch says.

“Hey, Ango,” Keats says, twirling his scythe, face apologetic. “It didn’t—”

“Yeah, it didn’t work, we know,” Angus says, waving one of the many, many business cards now in his front pocket.

“Hell of a fight though,” the elf grins. He looks at Paloma. “Your girlfriend says hi.”

“Yes,” Paloma says serenely, ignoring the shocked swivel of everyone’s heads towards her. “I know this.”

“Girlfriend?” June demands, grinning. “You never told us you had a sweetheart, Paloma!”

The old witch winks. “I don’t tell everything, yes?”

“We can ask the gods to get your girlfriend out too, ma’am,” Angus says earnestly.

“No,” Paloma says. “She deserves to be in there.” She pushes the basket of baked goods into Angus’s surprised hands. “Eat. It will be good for you, Angus.” Her face turns stern as she leans in, almost nose to nose. “Do not give any to Greg or Jerry.”

“Who, ma’am?”

“The bank guards,” Roswell supplies, fluttering to the rim of the basket and pecking at a scone.

“They know what they did,” Paloma says, hefting the war hammer.

“Oookay,” Angus says, eyeing the hammer nervously. “Thank you, ma’am! Um, I’ll just,” he looks at Keats. “Go see Lady Istus.”

“Let me call Luca and Redmond for you,” Ren says, coming around from behind the bar. “Finish your sandwich.”

“Is it really a sandwich if it’s open-faced, ma’am?”

“Oh no,” Ren sticks a firm finger in Angus’s grinning face. “We’re not starting up that debate again. Eat your _sandwich_  while I go call them.”

Angus just grins while Ren frowns and pulls out her stone and Keats hops onto the bar stool next to him. He winks at June. “Hi.”

She eyes him suspiciously. “What’ll ya have?”

“Well,” Keats says thoughtfully, blatantly stealing a scone out of Angus’s basket. “You got any lemon-related desserts?”

“Not a lot of lemons in the desert.”

“There are no lemons in the Astral Plane.”

“I thought I smelled something off about you.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been dead for centuries.”

“We’ve all died thousands of times,” June shrugs.

“I know,” Keats says, grin widening. “I work for the Raven Queen.”

“The crow queen, you say?” Cassidy hollers.

“That’s nowhere close to what I said.”

“You here to cause trouble, mister?” Cassidy demands, looming over the long-dead elf. “We helped stop the apocalypse!”

“I know, it was rad,” Keats says. “Uh, Ango, a little help?”

Angus raises one eyebrow and pointedly turns to Paloma. “So, ma’am, should we also ask Ms. Brogden for help?”

“Oh no,” Paloma says, tucking into a similar sandwich. “No, no, Angus, no.”

“No?”

Paloma looks at Angus severely. “Taako gets the gold?”

“Yeah,” Angus sighs. “That sounds like him. I can’t fault her for that. Oh!” he takes out the compact and flips it open. “Joaquin?”

“This is the man wreathed in flames, yes?” Paloma says, peering over his shoulder.

“Hey, Ango!” Joaquin says, sounding much more awake. He’s sitting at a kitchen table, fully dressed, sunlight streaming through the window behind him. “Great timing. Whoa, hi.”

“Joaquin, hello,” Paloma says, nodding.

“You’re probably the oldest lady I’ve ever seen,” Joaquin says, grunting as someone elbows him in the side. “What?” he demands to the out of sight person. “It’s true!” he turns back to the frying pan. “Marcus says hi.”

“Hi, Marcus,” Angus calls.

“Plane of Thought?” Keats asks from Angus’s other side, peering into the compact. “What’s up?”

“Hi, uh, elf kid.”

“I’m much older than you. Hey, do you have lemons in the Plane of Thought?”

“Um, yes?”

“There are no lemons—”

“In the Astral Plane, yes, we know” Angus cuts him off. “Anything, Joaquin?”

“Yeah,” Marcus chimes in, and Joaquin passes the frying pan. Marcus is strikingly handsome, enough so that Angus idly wonders if Kravitz somehow has family in the Plane of Thought. He has dark brown skin and a smattering of stubble over his strong chin, friendly brown eyes smiling at Angus from the compact. He shoves his curly black hair out of the way and waves. “Hi Angus!”

“Hi Marcus. Joaquin said you had an uncle?”

“Oh yeah, a bunch of em. You mean my Uncle Joe though, right?”

“The accountant.”

“Yeah. So I have him on the phone,” Marcus waves a glowing rectangle. “Which, um, I dunno about the reception between a phone and Joaquin’s magic frying pan, so I’ll pass along your questions?”

“Okay. Hi, Mr. Joe!”

A tinny voice comes through, distant, but Marcus relays his uncle’s greeting.

“Mr. Joe, how can I appeal for my family’s release?”

Marcus passes this along, and then nods, glancing back at the frying pan. “He wants to know what they’re in for.”

“Um, pretty much everything? Fantasy tax evasion, misfiling property permits, identity theft—”

“Hold on a sec, Ango,” Joaquin says as Magnus talks into the rectangle.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Angus angles the mirror so June can see into it, waving madly at Joaquin, who immediately blushes. “Whoa. Hi, miss.”

“It’s June, and you have a boyfriend,” she says sternly.

“Yeah, but Joaquin is weak for pretty faces,” Marcus says, grinning as Joaquin slumps onto the table, groaning loudly. “Also, my uncle says he has no idea cause the real IRS doesn’t deal with most of that stuff.”

“What _does_  it do then?” Angus asks.

“Uhhhhh,” he pauses, leaning back towards the rectangle while patting a despondent, red-faced Joaquin. “Income tax, apparently?”

“That’s it?”

“I guess?”

“Huh.”

“Sorry, it’s not super helpful,” Marcus says apologetically, hanging up with his accountant uncle. “There a way we can help?”

“Oh shit, yeah!” Joaquin says, rocketing up and almost hitting his boyfriend in the nose. “Can we come to Faerun?”

“I don’t think I have a high enough spell slot.”

“The fuck’s a spell slot?” Marcus mutters.

“We’ll ask the gods,” Keats suggests, having escaped from Cassidy.

“Which ones?”

“Well I work for the Raven Queen, goddess of the natural passage of life and death—”

“Um—”

“Which is great except for the aforementioned lack of lemons.”

“What?” Marcus says.

“Don’t ask,” Angus says wearily before Keats can say the fucking lemons line. “We’ll check, but I want to get going. Thanks Joaquin, Marcus. Say hi to Manuel and Rosita for me.”

“Will do, hermano!”

“Bye Angus!” Marcus calls as Angus shuts the compact.

“Okay sir,” Angus says. “Let’s go.” He heads for the door, glancing around at the others. “Miss Ren, did you call ahead to Mr. Luca and Mr. Redmond?”

“I think I should go with you,” Ren says, starting around the corner of the bar before Paloma stops her with a casual extension of her massive war hammer, which the tiny witch seems to have absolutely no difficulty holding.

“No,” she says calmly. “This is just for Angus and the young-old one.”

“I like the “dark curve of the raven’s wing” better,” Keats says.

“We don’t get to pick what people call us, yes?”

“Touché.”

Angus is already outside, twirling his wand and thinking, staring out towards the plateau with Istus’s temple. He barely blinks when Keats joins him in a swirl of blackness, the ancient elf boy following his gaze.

“You want me to just…?” he says, miming a scythe slash.

“No, thank you,” Angus says absently, deciding on his spell and focusing. After a few moments, a gorgeous roan stallion appears, blinking at them both with liquid black eyes. “Nice,” Angus says with considerable satisfaction. “I haven’t gotten that spell to work yet.”

“Shit,” Keats says, impressed. “Nice spellwork, little dude.”

“Thanks,” Angus says, already climbing up. “His name is Carburetor. Climb on.”

“Thanks, but uh,” Keats grins. “I can fly.”

So they go, Angus riding his elegant stallion, Keats flying beside him, and reach the temple of Istus quite quickly. Luca and Redmond are already waiting outside, and Luca beams when he sees them approach.

“Greetings!” he says.

“Hello sir!”

“Yo,” Keats says casually, still floating.

“And what is your name, hooligan?”

“I’m only a hooligan if you’re a gang member or a serial killer, sir,” Angus says. “And we’ve met before.”

“Of course I know you, Angus!” Luca says with a broad smile. In his human state, he doesn’t have the fantasy sugar skull decorations that Taako had described to Angus when he had told him about what they went through to get the Temporal Chalice, but there are still a few decorative swirls around his crinkled brown eyes.

Redmond, standing next to him, nods to them in a friendly way but doesn’t say anything.

“Oh, were you talking to me?” Keats asks after a beat. “What’s _your_  name?”

“What is _your_  name, _hooligan_?”

Keats laughs. “I’m Keats!”

“You’re of the Raven Queen’s retinue, are you not?”

“That’s me!”

“She’s not like our Lady Istus, that’s for sure.”

“I dunno, sir,” Angus interjects. “They both have an affinity for the natural order of things.”

“And each other,” Keats says with a grin.

Redmond laughs at that, while Luca splutters a bit, outraged.

“Are you a friend of those other three hooligans that saved our little town?”

“More of the elf’s husband and sister, and the Bluejeans guy, but yeah, I know them.”

“I had a feeling!”

“Sirs,” Angus interrupts. “This is all fine, but we’d really like to speak with Lady Istus if possible.”

“Of course!” Luca says, waving towards the entrance with an expansive gesture. “Go right in! Our Lady does have a soft spot for your family, you know!”

“So I’ve heard,” Angus says. “Do I have to, um…?”

Luca’s smile softens. “Just go in and talk,” he says encouragingly. “Our Lady of Fate is a much kinder goddess than many would believe.”

“Right,” Angus says, straightening his glasses and his shoulders. “Okay.”

“Ready, little man?” Keats asks, landing firmly on the ground, scythe in hand.

“Ready,” Angus says, and heads for the doors. He pushes them open carefully, much less dramatically than he had flung open Lord Artemis Sterling’s, Keats following along a step or two behind. The temple is empty, the lines of pews facing the pulpit lit by the early afternoon sun. It’s quiet, the intricate tapestry behind the pulpit blowing gently in the wind from the open windows. Angus slowly walks up towards the front, stowing his wand as he goes.

“Um,” he says as he stops in front of the pulpit, eyes on the tapestry. He glances at Keats, who leans casually on his scythe and shrugs.

“Not my goddess,” he says.

Angus nods and takes another deep breath. “Um, hello, Lady Istus,” he says into the quiet. “I know we’ve never, um, officially met? My name is Angus McDonald, and I’m, well I’m the world’s greatest detective, and I could use some help.”

There’s silence and stillness for another few moments, and then, she’s just there. Istus sits comfortably on the steps leading up to the pulpit, her flowing white hair with a tinge of blue to it, like starlight. Her scarf is in her hands as she knits without looking, the end tossed over her shoulder and trailing off into infinity as she smiles at Angus, her golden eyes shimmering with more power and care than could be contained in a mortal form.

“Hello, Angus,” she says.

Angus audibly gulps. “Um, hello, ma’am? Um, Lady Istus?”

“Istus is fine,” she says, her smile warm. “I don’t tend to insist on formality much anymore. That’s for younger deities.”

“Hi, Lady Iz,” Keats says with a grin.

“Case in point,” the goddess says, one eyebrow raised, smile widening.

“Um, Is— I’m sorry, I don’t know if I can just call you Istus, ma’am.”

“That’s alright.”

“Lady Istus, um, my family’s been—”

“A moment,” she interrupts, still knitting away. “Not everyone’s here yet.”

“What?”

“Hell yeah,” Keats says. “I thought so.”

“Yes,” Istus seems rather amused. “Although you’re not exactly operating on the same level as Angus here.”

“I mean, yeah, but…” Keats shrugs, still grinning.

“I’m sorry,” Angus says, looking between the goddess and the elf. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, _my_  lady’s coming,” Keats says. “And not just Her.”

Angus gulps again as blackness flows into the room on Istus’s right, swirling and shifting like squid ink, like the void between the stars, like… feathers. Raven feathers, to be specific, as the ever-changing form of the Raven Queen, goddess of the natural passage between life and death, manifests in the small desert temple. Angus feels his eyes strain as he looks on, only catching feathers and the flicker of many, many hands, and a bone-white mask encasing bright, piercing eyes. She settles next to Istus on the stairs, the blackness flowing like an elegant gown draping across an unknowable form, and she fixes Angus with those eyes.

“Hi Mom!” Keats says happily. He bounds towards that darkness, throwing his arms around the shifting form, hugging his goddess before he skips back to join Angus, still beaming.

The Raven Queen’s voice is, by its nature, cold, like the depths of the grave, but somehow there’s a feeling of… warmth to it, when she speaks. “ **HELLO, MY CHILD**.” Angus can _feel_  her gaze shift back to him and he shivers under that weight. “ **AND TO YOU, BOY DETECTIVE. MY REAPERS SPEAK MOST HIGHLY OF YOU**.”

“Oh,” Angus squeaks. “Um, thank you, Your Majesty?”

The bone-white mask nods slightly, and Istus settles an elegant brown hand on the ever-changing darkness. “Hello, darling.”

“ **DEAREST ONE**.”

“One more,” Istus says encouragingly, turning back to Angus.

“Don’t worry,” Keats whispers.

“Don’t worry?” Angus hisses back. “There are _two goddesses_  in front of me!”

“It’s fine, they like you.”

“ _Oh, do they_?”

“Ah, he here comes now,” Istus says, her smile knowing, telling Angus that she _absolutely_  heard the exchange between him and Keats.

A moment more, and then Angus hears a delicate creaking, like that of trees swaying in a strong wind, and then a powerful smell of damp earth and growing things. There’s a sense of brightness settling on Istus’s left, like warm sun at the height of summer, and a hint of sweetness, like ripe fruit. A smiling man is there, reclining happily on the steps, patting his round, hairy potbelly and running his other hand through his wild hair. His legs are those of a goat, and the hand running through his hair skirts around the curled horns poking out of the thicket. Pan smiles warmly at Angus and then glances at his fellow deities.

“Ladies.”

“Hello, Pan.”

“ **GREETINGS**.”

“About time we got together about all this,” Pan says with a laugh.

“Hey Pan!” Keats says brightly.

“Hey Keats! So, this is the detective boy, huh?” Pan leans forward to peer at Angus, still smiling, and Angus has a pang of nervousness given how Merle used to act.

“Um, yes sir?” Angus says. “I don’t know what Merle’s said about me—”

“More good things than you would think,” Pan says, surprisingly reassuring.

“Now that everyone’s here,” Istus says, drawing everyone’s attention. Still knitting, she nods at Angus, and three pairs of divine eyes (or many, many more, depending on how you count the Raven Queen’s, but Angus suspects it would be impolite to ask), and one pair of immortal elf eyes, all turn to Angus. “I believe that Angus had something to ask.”

“Oh,” Angus fidgets a little before he takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders. “Hi, Lady Istus, Your Majesty, um...”

“Pan,” Pan says. “Just Pan, I don’t got a title. Not fancy like these ladies here.”

“ **HE IS NOT** ,” the Raven Queen states.

That surprises a laugh from Angus. He claps his hands over his mouth as Keats hoots and yells “Hell yeah, little man!” and Istus’s smile broadens. Pan, for his part, laughs right along with him, and even the Raven Queen gives the flickering impression of a smile among the bubble and flow of the darkness around her.

“Right,” Angus says, feeling quite a bit braver now. “You probably already know this, sir and ma’ams, but my whole family has been taken to fantasy tax jail, and I really would like them back, please.”

“Yes,” Istus muses. “We are… unfortunately familiar, with The Head.”

“That Head’s got a stick up its ass without even having an ass,” Pan grumbles.

“ **I DO NOT CARE FOR THE HEAD** ,” the Raven Queen pronounces. “ **IT HAS TAKEN THREE OF MY REAPERS, AND MANY MORE BESIDES**.”

Istus looks at Angus shrewdly, a bit of a challenge to her gaze. “And what do you plan to do about it?”

“I’ve tried a lot, Lady Istus,” Angus says. “We’ve sent people in but they just got trapped too, and then I tried to go to Lord Artemis Sterling—”

“Still amazing,” Keats interjects.

“But he couldn’t help, and then I tried calling to our friends on the Plane of Thought—”

“Joaquin,” Istus says.

“Yes,” Angus nods. “Um, I didn’t know you knew about him.”

Istus smiles. “I’m the goddess of fate, Angus. There’s not a lot I don’t know.”

“No need to get uppity, Iz,” Pan says genially. “You didn’t know about Taako and the reaper.”

Istus, to Angus’s amazement and Keats’s obvious delight, reddens. “I knew,” she says. “Just not…. I didn’t know it would happen like that.”

“ **EVEN DEITIES CANNOT KNOW EVERYTHING, DEAREST ONE** ,” the Raven Queen says, although there seems to be more than a touch of amusement on her end too. “ **EVEN IF YOU ARE THE GODDESS OF FATE**.”

“Yes, well,” Istus says, her godly blush fading. “I know of the Man Wreathed in Flames, Angus.”

“Okay,” Angus says, trying to hide his grin. “Um, well, Joaquin’s boyfriend’s uncle is an accountant on the Plane of Thought, but he said that their version of the IRS – without the fantasy in front of it – doesn’t deal with all the ones that the FIRS does, so they couldn’t help either.”

“Kid goes hard or goes harder,” Keats says.

“So,” Angus continues. “Please, if there’s something any of you can do, I really…” he pauses, forcing back the unexpected tears, but then, it’s been a long few days and he really _does_  miss everyone. “I really want them to come home.”

There’s silence for a moment, the only sound the steady clicking of Istus’s needles, knitting her complex, infinite work. And then the Raven Queen speaks.

“ **OF COURSE**.”

Angus blinks. “Um, really?”

“ **YES**.”

“Yeah,” Pan grunts, rolling his shoulders. “That overgrown statue’s got my Merle in prison and I’m kinda tired of it if I’m bein’ honest.”

 Istus hums thoughtfully, golden eyes on Angus, and he’s suddenly and fiercely reminded of Lucretia’s penetrating stare on the day he was hired at the Bureau of Balance. “Well,” she says. “It seems we three are in agreement.”

“Hell yeah,” Keats says, albeit quietly.

“Angus,” Istus says, and she rises, still knitting, but now she has more hands that are outstretched towards him. The Raven Queen also rises, in a flow not unlike water flying up in one of Taako’s anti-gravity spells when he “fishes”. Pan stands up much like Merle does, with grumbling and cracking joints, but he faces Angus too.

“Yes ma’am?” Angus says, straightening his shoulders again.

Istus smiles. “We’ll go get your family back.”

Angus grins right back, walks forward, and gives Istus a double high five on two of her many hands. “Fantasy tax prison won’t know what hit it, ma’am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a fuckin while hasn't it lmao. NaNo kicked my ass in terms of me being able to do other creative things, but i won and here's the next chapter! but thanks for sticking around!
> 
> comments and kudos and what have you
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


	10. in which those in fantasy tax prison meet The Man, and deities clash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> barring any new live shows that come out before i finish this, this chapter marks the official name-dropping of all 183 named TAZ Balance characters

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

“Oh shit!” Killian and Carey yell at the same time, running over to embrace Noelle. She laughs, hugging them back, before she waves at the rest of them.

“Hi, yall!”

“Noelle!” Magnus yells, rushing in and hugging all of them.

“Hey!” Taako calls, delighted.

They all exchange greetings, and then Noelle looks towards Merle. “You said you wanted a guy on the inside, right?”

“Sure did,” Merle says.

“Who’s… Adam Abingdam?” Taako asks.

“Well c’mon, I’ll introduce ya,” Noelle says cheerfully.

She starts walking, arm in arm with both Carey and Killian. They start telling her all about their wedding, leading the pack. Taako glances at Kravitz and Lup before shrugging and following.

Magnus gets distracted for a moment, running over upon seeing the two Frankensteins, yelling about how he wants to figure out once and for all which one tells the truth and which one lies, but he quickly wanders back over when Taako hollers something about not cooking fantasy shepherd’s pie for a year if he doesn’t get his ass back over to the rest of them.

They wind through the cream-colored halls of the fantasy tax prison, passing various agents and fellow prisoners. Magnus almost starts another fight upon seeing the parents of Cozgul, the young ogre who fantasy Home Alone-d him one Candlenights, thankfully being held back by Barry, although he doesn’t hold him back from going to punch Cherub Joe.

Klaarg is walking with a very polite Brad, listing off all his children. “Blarg of course is a tea lover, Marg is following in her Aunt Christy’s footsteps with the fighting, Targ is training with ol Jess, one of the reasons he wanted that Turbo Jeff action figure, and _Sharg_ , now she wants to act.”

“What about Parg?” Brad asks.

“Oh, she wants to be a wizard. We keep telling her to wait to specialize, but you know kids and their idols. She’s set the curtains on fire three times in the last week! Quarg’s not much better, they want to become a _necromancer_ , can you believe it?”

“A challenge, I’m sure,” Brad says delicately. “And Klaarg Jr?”

“A coffee drinker,” Klaarg says mournfully.

Lucretia and Antonia, walking arm in arm just behind Merle and Davenport, start debating the finer points of druidic spellcasting, Antonia surprised to learn that Lucretia technically has a few levels in druid.

“It was a long century,” Lucretia deadpans.

“What _other_ classes are you?”

“How much time do you have?”

“I don’t really want to summon an agent to find out.”

“She multiclassed more than I did,” Barry says to Lup, listening to this. “Damn, I think my time slot is about up.”

“That’s okay, Bear,” Lup says consolingly. “So was mine.”

“I didn’t even win fantasy Cards Against Humanity.”

People peel off as they keep walking, Team Lesbian wandering away towards the food hall, Rowan and Avi following. Brad goes along with Klaarg to see what tea is available. Their new friends had continued on with the fantasy Cards Against Humanity, leaving the IPRE plus Antonia and Kravitz, and the Regulator squad.

Noelle leads them through a small door in the wall with a gate attached. It’s open, but it radiates magic. They see a wide hall, almost reminiscent of a cathedral in design and size, but instead of stained glass windows, there are massive cells with shimmering gray force fields blocking them. There are two figures leaning against the wall next to the only occupied cell, chatting casually to each other. The occupied cell is full of a swirling orange and purple something, which occasionally yowls as it brushes against the force field.

As they draw closer, the figures glance up. One is a short, stout dwarven figure, glowing with divine energy that feels reminiscent of a campfire after a long day of traveling, or a spark of lightning bursting through the sky. This somehow coexists with his general appearance, his loud fantasy Hawaiian shirt assaulting their eyes even from across the room.

The other figure is a tall, tall human man, with blue eyes and pale skin, dressed not unlike the assistant manager at Fantasy Gamestop, but jacked. He’s grinning as they approach, tossing an apple from hand to hand.

“Hach machi,” Taako mutters, eyeing the tall man. Kravitz, hand in hand with his husband, eyes him too, uncertain.

“If it isn’t Merle Highchurch,” the dwarf says, laughing.

“Uh, yeah, hi? Do I know you?”

“You should,” the dwarf says. “You followed me for a few years there, before you went back to Pan.”

Taako and Magnus both burst out laughing, the others looking between Merle and the godly dwarf. Davenport slowly puts a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching it gently. “Merle,” he says. “D-did you forget a god?”

“No, no,” Merle scoffs. “Course not. Martha, wasn’t it?”

 “Close enough,” the dwarf says. “Marthammor Duin.”

“Oh, right,” Merle says, ignoring the raucous laughter from the rest of his family. “So, uh, how you been?”

“Not too bad, when I’m not in fantasy tax prison.”

“Sure,” Merle mumbles. “Listen, uh, no hard feelings about me switchin back to Pan, right?”

Marthammor Duin smiles. “I’m just happy you found your place. Pan was wondering when you’d return, so I tried to watch your back for him until you did.”

“Uh, yeah, sure! Thanks, uh, pal.”

“They can capture other gods too?” Lucretia breaks in, frowning.

“Oh yeah, of course. They’re the _worst_ with jurisdiction.” Marthammor Duin gestures at the cells. “These are for us, when they occasionally decide to actually enforce it. Course, we can wander as we like, this is just if we’re throwing a temper tantrum, like your friend in there.”

“What friend?” Lup breaks in, once she stops laughing.

“AH, YOU CAME ALL THE WAY TO THE CELESTIAL PLANE LOOKING FOR A DEALLLLLLLLLLLL, HMMM?”

“Oh no,” Magnus says.

“That was forty-two Ls,” Merle says.

“What’s up, Garfield?” Taako drawls.

The swirl of purple and orange within the cell resolves, sort of, into the incomprehensible form of Garfield the Deals Warlock, grinning out at them all from behind the magical barrier.

“DON’T SUPPOSE YOU COULD HELP AN OLD FRIEND OUT?”

“Nope!” Magnus says cheerfully. “Stay in there forever!”

“He’s an unnerving fella, isn’t he?” Noelle says, eyeing the cell warily. “But that’s okay, we’re not here to talk to him. Hi Adam!”

The tall man smirks, looking at her. “Hey, Noelle. Who are your friends?”

“You know who they are!” Noelle laughs. “You heard the Story, same as the rest of us. Merle had a question for ya.”

Everyone’s attention turns to Merle. The dwarf looks away from his former god with an awkward laugh and then grins. “Yeah, hey! What was your name?”

“Adam,” the tall man says. “Adam Abingdam.”

“Our girl Noelle here says you can get us the goods.”

“I do steal quite a lot of things,” Adam says, nodding and raising his apple. “What did you have in mind?”

Merle grins wider. “A fantasy karaoke machine!”

There is silence for the briefest of moments.

Both Taako and Lup explode into laughter, each leaning on their respective husbands, who are both staring at Merle, with utter bemusement on Kravitz’s face and resignation on Barry’s. Lucretia and Davenport both bring their free hands to their foreheads, rubbing their temples in the same motion, while Magnus, Carey, and Killian all cheerfully yell “Nope! What the fuck, old man!” and variations thereof. Antonia looks, in a manner of speaking, towards Merle and starts giggling, leaning against Lucretia as she does, while Noelle just shrugs.

“So, Adam,” she says. “Think you can do it?”

“Hmm,” Adam says, tossing his apple back and forth. “Might have to ask my patron for some help with that one.”

“Patron?” Lucretia asks, suspicious.

“SAME AS MINE!” Garfield says from the cell.

“Who the fuck is your patron?” Lup asks, still half on Barry.

“The Final Pam, of course.”

There’s another pause.

“Whomst?” Taako demands.

“Beats me, I got a low religion check,” Merle says with a shrug.

“ _You’re the cleric_.”

“Allegedly,” Magnus says.

“Hey!”

“Merle I don’t know if a twenty-five counts as a low check—”

“She has incredibly chaotic reality-warping powers,” Adam says. “Ones that even can split through the lawful neutral of this accursed place. So yes, dwarf—”

“That’s _Earl_ Merle to you.”

“I will be able to fulfill your request. Provided you give me something in return.”

“ASK HIM FOR SOME BLOOD!”

“Fuck off, Garfield!” Magnus says. “Why were you even growing a me body anyway?”

“YOU’LL NEVER KNOW!”

“A place to party should be sufficient,” Adam says after some thought.

“Oh!” Merle laughs. “That’s easy! Sure!”

“The pact is sealed, then,” Adam says, turning an unnervingly wide grin towards them. He bends his knees slightly and then jumps, soaring upward and clipping straight through the distant ceiling and out of sight.

“Okay,” Magnus says after a moment. “Hated that guy!”

“I dunno, Mags, I thought he seemed pretty cool,” Taako says. “Tall.”

“Very tall,” Kravitz agrees, still staring upwards. He seems somewhat unnerved.

“ _Why_ do you need a fantasy karaoke machine?” Lucretia asks.

“For me and Barry to crush it, Creesh, duh,” Lup says.

“What?” Taako demands, affronted. “Lulu, you _know_ me and Krav are gonna kill it.”

“Not nearly as good, baby bro.”

“Now hold on,” Magnus says, stepping between the twins. “Come on. We all know _I’m_ gonna win.”

“How do you win at fantasy karaoke?” Antonia asks in a low voice.

Lucretia shrugs. “I don’t know, but it’s certainly not gonna be Merle.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t even trip,” Killian says. “Me, Carey, and Noelle could take you fools any day of the week.”

“ _Now hold on_ —”

“Pretty sure Cap’s the best singer out of us—” Barry starts.

“Shut up, babe,” Lup says, still glaring at Taako.

“See,” Merle says quietly to Davenport, grinning behind his beard. “Not such a bad plan, huh?”

Davenport chuckles. “And they call you the Peacekeeper.”

Merle laughs. “Sure is better than everyone moping, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Davenport says, smiling fondly as he watches his family bicker. “Yeah, it is.”

 

 

_The Tax Prison, The Celestial Plane_

Morthammor Duin is still laughing over them all arguing when there’s a rumble through the fabric of the fantasy tax prison itself. The space near the entrance to the rows of deity cells twists, giving them a view of the main room.

Something is breaking through.

There’s a crack forming in the air, pulsing once, twice, with impenetrable darkness. The crack shifts, appearing and disappearing as the force behind it shoves. The darkness flickers, and then it’s vines, thick as tree trunks, curling around the edges and holding it open. The darkness returns, flowing and twisting, and in the center of that darkness is a shimmering iridescence, blooming like a flower that bursts through into the tax prison itself with a sound like tearing through thick, wet paper, amplified by a thousand.

And then they’re just standing there, in the middle of the floor of fantasy tax prison. Istus, flanked by the Raven Queen on her right and Pan on her left.

They do not look as they normally do.

Istus has shed her usual guise of an ambiguously aged woman with silver starlight hair and a simple brown dress, her endless scarf in her lap or on her shoulder, kind eyes and amused smile absent.

Instead, she is enormous and unfathomable, now a shifting, vaguely humanoid bundle of glittering threads with far too many hands barely holding itself together, now a glowing collection of needles held by hands and eyes, afire with iridescence, too bright to look at. And behind it all, the low, persistent snip of a multitude of scissors, something so ordinary and yet openly a threat, a warning. A reminder, that all things are subject to Fate.

The Raven Queen is always terrifying on some level, of course. She is the goddess of the natural passage of life and death, her very presence vibrating in the cells of every mortal being, reminding them of their built-in time limit.

Much easier to remember, seeing her now. She drains the light from the room, the illumination of the warm off-white walls seeming to bend in towards her. She’s vast, uncompromising, her uncountable number of eyes flashing with white-tinged rage. She brings cold with her, a deep shiver settling deep in the bones of every onlooker, her seething darkness like bubbling squid ink, like the void, like the grave.

Pan is the one who can most easily pass for mortal, most often taking the form of a satyr, round-faced and smiling, laughing easily over wine and feasts. Merle is the only one who has met him officially, but the rest could swear they remember him, from beach parties and other such celebrations of life.

Little of that laughing, hoofed man remains. Instead, the figure is tall, towering far and wide over the onlookers. The horns are curled, streaked with something red and sharp. He brings vines with him, the ominous creak of growing things echoing in the background. This is no garden or bountiful harvest, but rather overgrowth, life unchecked and choking.

Facing the three of them, dwarfed by their towering forms, is the distant, unchanged figure of The Head, out from behind its desk. It too, has hands, too many to count, facing down the three deities come to collect their own. As they watch, it begins to speak in three voices at the same time, a cacophony of sounds, any individual word or phrase indistinguishable, lost in the noise.

Except for Antonia, apparently, who starts to laugh even as the deities face each other down.

“Uhhhh,” Magnus says.

“Antonia?” Lucretia asks.

“Is she like, good?” Taako asks.

“Sorry,” Antonia says, still leaning on Lucretia and grinning. “I’m getting parts of it. It’s, um, all the tax violations they’ve done. Apparently Istus used to be punk rock?”

“What?” Lup and Barry say together.

“Hell yeah!” from Taako.

“And Pan,” Antonia listens for a moment. “Apparently doesn’t pay taxes on his celestial weed.”

“You don’t have to pay taxes on _weed_ ,” Merle scoffs, ignoring Davenport pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No fucking wonder you’re in here, bud,” Barry says.

“What about the Raven Queen?” Kravitz asks.

“Um,” Antonia listens again, the skin visible around the linen over her lack of eyes tightening in concentration. “It just keeps chanting that her affairs are out of order? I don’t know what that means.”

“Not really that surprising,” comes another voice.

“Hey, Keats!” Magnus says, brightening.

Keats is seated comfortably on the ground next to them, eyes on the brewing godly fight. He’s lacking his scythe, although this doesn’t seem to bother him much. He doesn’t actually have a bowl of popcorn, however much his general attitude suggests it. “Hey.”

“What is happening?” Kravitz demands.

“God fight,” Keats says, as if it were obvious, which, to be fair, it is. “They’re kinda tired of all of you being taken, especially at once. The Head doesn’t usually do this but I guess it got bored? Or something.”

“You might want to move,” Morthhammor Duin advises them, coming around on next to Merle. “They’re gonna get tossed in these here cells pretty soon and that’s not gonna be fun to be around.”

“Pssh, no way,” Taako scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, not a chance,” Lup agrees. “Bird Momma’s _got_ this.”

“I d-don’t know,” Davenport says warily. “They’re not really on home turf here.”

He shoos his family, and the various additions, carefully around the edges of the room, as the deathly screech of ravens intensifies, intertwining with the creaking of too-fast growth and the steady clack and snip of needles and scissors. They move around to the tunnels leading towards the food hall, cautious eyes on the tension-filled main room. They rejoin the others who are assembled to watch, when something in the charged air _snaps_.

The twisting forms of the three deities swoop forward, engaging the many hands of The Head with shrieks and whipping vines and, in the case of Istus, deathly silence, broken only by the quiet _thwip_ of needles.

It’s a hell of a fight, made all the more difficult to describe thanks to the lack of strict corporality of most of the beings involved. The deities shift like water, or flame, slicing through or tying up or simply absorbing the hands, the three slowly pushing towards The Head at the center, who continues to watch, unperturbed.

Time is hard to gauge in a place like fantasy tax prison, and so it’s entirely arbitrary when guessing how long the fight lasts. Eventually, though, The Head stops reciting in triplicate, falling silent, and then the air is thick with hands, appearing silently and occupying every given space in the main room.

They’re thick enough to entirely obscure the screeching figures of the three deities, swirling and twisting in an unnerving pattern, and then.

They’re just gone.

And so is the goddess of fate, the goddess of death, and the god of nature.

The mystery of where they ended up lasts approximately four seconds, as a _thud_ reverberates through the fabric of the fantasy tax prison, not unlike the feeling when they first broke through. Then another. And another.

“They might take a bit to calm down,” Morthhammor Duin says with a sigh. “I’ll go talk to them. Maybe go, uh, chill somewhere else? It won’t be quite _safe_ for mortals around the deity cells for a while.”

With that he vanishes, either because deities can bend the no-magic rules in fantasy tax prison or he just moved that quickly. Davenport sighs, watching Magnus instantly start moving back towards the cells, barely held back by Carey and Killian, insistent that they go help Istus at least. Lup and Kravitz are right there next to him, arguing with Barry and Taako that they owe the Raven Queen their aid. Merle, the only actual cleric, doesn’t seem all that bothered.

“D-did you know this would happen?” he asks Merle.

“Nah,” Merle says cheerfully. “When do ya think that Adam kid will get me that fantasy karaoke machine?”

“No idea.”

“Hopefully after dinner,” Avi chimes in, sitting comfortably with Rowan on the ground not far away. “We loved the breakfast spread.”

“Well, natch,” Taako says as he drapes himself over Kravitz’s shoulders in an attempt to stop him from heading towards the cells. This has little effect, as Kravitz just hoists his husband up and continues walking, now blocked only by an insistent Barry.

“Lup, we don’t wanna be going over there right now.”

“That’s Bird Momma in there!” Lup says, crossing her arms and trying, once again, to move around Barry. Her husband, after so long, moves with her, frowning.

“My goddess,” Kravitz says. “And _yours_ , Barry.”

“I mean, I know,” Barry says, readjusting his glasses. “But I don’t really wanna be, uh, de-bodied because she’s stuck in prison.”

“What _would_ happen if we lost our physical forms in here?” Lup says, interested now.

“Nope!” Taako says from Kravitz’s shoulders. “Noooooope, don’t care, we’re not playing _that_ game, thank you!” He pokes at Kravitz’s head. “C’mon bones. I bet I can teach you how to make a real macaron even with those basic-ass ingredients.”

“You gonna use my elderflower recipe?” Lup says.

“ _Your_ elderflower recipe? Excuse the fuck outta you, Lulu, that’s _my_ recipe! Tell her, Krav.”

Kravitz glances at Barry with the expression commonly found on the beige spouses of high-powered parents suddenly asked to give on opinion on anything more high-stakes than their favorite brand of khaki, such as their child’s progress at Taako’s school. This, of course, is an expression familiar to all of them. “Uhhhh—”

Barry shrugs. “Hey uh, Lucretia?”

Lucretia doesn’t even look up from her discussion of tea with Brad and Antonia and a very animated Klaarg. “What?”

“Which twin first came up with the elderflower macarons recipe?”

“I think the fuck not.”

“C’mon, Creesh, you know it’s mine!”

“Shut up, Lup, it was definitely mine.”

“Absolutely not,” Lucretia repeats, still not looking, although she smiles at Antonia laughing. “Not after cycle 54.”

“What, dare I ask, happened in cycle 54?” Brad says.

“You don’t,” Magnus says.

“I—what?”

“You don’t ask.”

“But, Magnus, I _do_ want to know—”

“No Brad,” Magnus says, leaning over him, face quite serious. “You don’t.”

Taako, ignoring this after scoffing at Lucretia’s wise decision to not take a side in this particular age-old debate, directs Kravitz to carry him towards the kitchens again, Barry and Lup walking alongside, Barry now engaged in stopping his wife from casually murdering her twin. They walk past Hurley and Sloane, who have gotten a beach ball from _somewhere_.

“Lesbian dryad powers”, Sloane says, entirely stone (or rather, bark) faced, when Killian asks.

“I call bullshit on that one,” Carey says, spiking the beach ball towards Hurley. “On the grounds of: I’m a lesbian, and I can’t summon a beach ball.”

“You’re not a magic user,” Hurley points out as she sets her wife up for a return.

“As far as anyone knows,” Carey says.

“What?”

“What?”

“Hey,” Sloane interrupts. “Is it true that you two know Davenport?”

“Uh, yeah?” Killian says, shrugging. “He’s like, right there.”

Davenport is, indeed, right there, watching in amusement as Merle tries his best to gross out the tea talkers. He’s largely not succeeding, given how Lucretia is used to his bullshit, Brad is too polite to show his disgust, Antonia finds it hilarious, and Klaarg just barrels on talking about oolong.

“Didn’t he use to race on their home plane?” Hurley says, blocking the beach ball directly back into Carey’s face.

“Oh shit, yeah,” Carey says, ducking just in time. “Yeah, he’s got the coolest fucking stories. Hey Dav! HEY DAV!”

“I’m r-right here, Carey, you don’t need to shout.”

“You’re used to people at high volume, Mags doesn’t have an off switch,” Carey retorts. “Tell us about that time you almost died in a race.”

Davenport grins. “Which one?”

“There’s multiple?” Hurley demands.

“We’ve all heard the Story, of course there is,” Sloane deadpans. “Better to get it straight from the source.”

“How dare you accuse him of being straight?” from Carey.

“A-alright, alright,” Davenport interrupts, stopping the babble with the ease of long, _long_ practice. “You wanna hear about the time I raced a semi-living stone d-dragon for the Light on cycle 14?”

“Holy shit,” Killian says, barely reacting as Sloane spikes the beach ball into her face. “Uh, _yes_?”

“Okay,” Davenport says. “Let me set the scene.”

He launches into the story, his audience rapt regardless of his occasional stutter. Magnus sneaks up on Carey to steal the beach ball, trying to make use of his rogue skills. The dragonborn flips him on his back without looking away from Davenport, but she lets him take the beach ball anyway.

“It was a nice try, Mags,” Avi says consolingly when Magnus returns with the beach ball, rubbing at his newly sore shoulder.

“Not that nice,” Rowan grins.

“Hey! I got the beach ball, didn’t I? Rustic hospitality!”

“Pretty sure that’s not what that is.”

“Everybody loves Magnus!”

“Ehhh.”

“Hey!”

“I hope they give me my jerky back,” Rowan says as they start hitting around the beach ball, with significantly less flair than Team Lesbian.

“All belongings will be returned to you upon completion of your sentence,” says an agent, appearing at his elbow.

“AH!” from Magnus.

“Who are you?” Avi asks nervously after a moment.

“Agent Para,” the agent says. “And my partner,” gesturing to another agent, suddenly at Magnus’s elbow.

“ _AH_!”

“Agent More.”

Avi snickers, getting it under control when both agents stare at him.

“Okay,” Rowan says. “Why did you take my jerky again?”

“It is policy,” Agent More says.

“What possible threat could _jerky_ be?”

“You know,” Agent Para and Agent More say together, staring at him.

“We don’t!” from Magnus.

The agents don’t respond, vanishing after another moment.

“Well that was weird,” Avi says, hitting the beach ball into Magnus’s face.

“Yeah!”

“Do you think there are lemons in here?” Keats asks, popping up and grabbing the beach ball.

“What _is_ it with you and lemons?” Magnus asks, trying and failing to get the beach ball back from him.

“There are no lemons in the Astral Plane.”

“But this is the Celestial Plane, isn’t it?” Avi asks. “So, maybe lemons?”

“Maybe!” Keats takes off for the kitchens, carrying the beach ball. With a yelp, Magnus goes after him, Rowan and Avi glancing at each other and following at a much more ambling pace. As they do, passing a very confused Gerald Loggins mournfully talking about his step-son Timothy to a very bored Merle, a newly familiar tall silhouette appears.

“Adam,” Lucretia says, interrupting Klaarg’s flow about how kombucha barely qualifies as _real_ tea.

“Madam Director,” Adam Abingdam returns, looking towards Merle. He makes a gesture and a full-sized fantasy karaoke machine appears, floating in the air next to him. “My part of the bargain, fulfilled.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Merle says approvingly. “Not bad, Andy.”

“It’s Adam.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“After d-dinner, Merle,” Davenport says without looking up.

Merle scoffs as Adam disappears, leaving the fantasy karaoke machine behind. “Sure, Dav,” he says. “One last meal before I win.”

“I’m a trained opera singer, Merle.”

“Gonna make it all the more embarrassing then, huh?”

“Gonna need more wine for that,” Lucretia says, climbing to her feet.

“Please,” Antonia says emphatically.

“There is no alcohol in fantasy tax prison,” two agents say in unison, appearing in front of them.

“That’s what you think,” Lucretia says, raising a single eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Agent Bowling.”

“Agent For’Soup.”

“Oh fuck off.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Merle says, hefting the fantasy karaoke machine with some difficulty, helped by absolutely no one. “Can’t wait to break out the Kenny Chesney on this guy.”

“Gods help us all,” Hurley and Sloane say in unison.

“Hey, good idea! They can sing too!”

“Not even the gods can help us now,” Davenport sighs.

“It’s okay,” Brad says comfortingly. “Angus is still out there.”

 

_Refuge, Faerun_

“What the _fuck_?”

“Angus!” Ren says, pointing at Paloma. “Language!”

“No no, he is right,” Paloma says, swinging her war hammer casually where she sits on the bar.

“What happened?” June asks, emerging from the kitchen. She eyes Angus, who is sitting at the bar and glaring down at the multitude of business cards scattered across the polished wood, glaring at them with a stare intense enough to set them on fire. Given how one of them is smoking, the metaphor isn’t too far off, at least until Cassidy thumps a massive hand down on his shoulder and breaks his concentration.

“What’s the matter, Ango?” she asks, voice as comforting as it can be at her volume.

“More business cards,” Angus grumbles, glaring again. “How can they catch _gods_?”

“To catch a god, you must _think_ like a god,” Paloma says solemnly.

“Or be one,” June snorts.

“Yes. That works also.”

“One for Keats too,” Ren notes, leaning over the bar and reading the labels upside down.

“I must say I’m not too fond of this situation,” Roswell says, their bird voice serious for all the piping tones.

“Miss Ren, can we gather the wood we need?”

Ren eyes Angus. “I mean, sure, little man, but why?”

“Because I’m going in myself,” Angus says firmly, folding his arms.

“Hell yeah,” from June.

“No, now hold on – be quiet, June –” Ren starts. “You can’t just—”

“I might be the only person out of anybody I know who has their taxes in perfect order,” Angus says. “And I can prove it too. How about you, Miss Ren? Sheriff Roswell?”

“I don’t have to pay taxes, I’m a bird!” Roswell says. “And before that, when I was an elemental, I paid all my taxes on time.”

“Miss Ren?”

“I – my taxes are fine, sure – but Angus, I dunno about this. It seems pretty dangerous.”

“My whole family’s in there,” Angus says flatly. “I should have been the one to go in and get Taako and Merle first, but no one listened to me.”

“Let him go,” Paloma says, swinging her war hammer casually.

“Miss Paloma, do you want to come? Mayor Cassidy?”

“Oh, no, no no no,” Paloma chuckles. “No, I’ve been dodging those agents for many years, Angus, no. You should be fine though.”

“I don’t even know what taxes are!”

“Cassidy, you’re the town elder,” June says, laughing into her hand.

“Yep!”

“I’m coming with you,” Ren says firmly. “But before we go, we’ll have to see if we can find some precedents. And get records of our own tax histories.”

“I think I can help with that,” Roswell chirps, fluttering up to Angus’s shoulder.

“Lead the way, Sheriff,” Angus says.

“I’ll send up some tea,” June says. “You’ll need it.”

“Coffee, please.”

“You got it.”

“Follow me, then,” Roswell says, flying up from Angus’s shoulder and out the door. They lead Angus and Ren to the sheriff’s office, the cells somewhat dusty from disuse. They fly to one of the back rooms, filled with piles and piles of records stretching back to the founding of the town. Ren sets to work flicking through the files, finding her own immaculately maintained tax records, while Roswell pokes around in a desk and emerges with a pair of tiny bird spectacles. They perch on top of a giant tome entitled ‘Tax Laws Through The Ages’. Angus pulls his tax records out of his satchel, where they have been since Taako and Merle were first grabbed, and sets about neatly organizing his case for why everyone he knows should be released from fantasy tax prison.

June stops by with coffee, as promised, along with some thick stew and fresh bread. They break to eat while June updates them on her and Paloma’s trip to Neverwinter to secure the specific wood needed for the pyre.

“So, if anyone says something about a tiny witch with a war hammer threatening a merchant for trying to steal her scone recipe, you don’t know us.”

“No problem,” Angus says, eating a slice of bread absently as he looks through an obscure property law from forty-seven years ago. “I’m no narc.”

“What _else_ did you two get up to in Neverwinter?” Ren asks sternly.

June grins over her coffee cup. “Nothing they can prove.”

“But you got the wood?”

“Oh yeah, it’s out by the Davy Lamp, ready to go.”

“Good, thank you,” Angus says politely, standing up and stretching out his sore back muscles. “Let’s go.”

“It’s just about the middle of the night,” Ren points out, quite reasonably. “I know you want them back, Angus, but one more night ain’t gonna hurt em. We can go when we’re fresh and rested.”

“Gives us more time to finish up our defense too,” Roswell adds.

“But—”

“We all need sleep, Angus,” Ren says. “First thing in the morning.”

Angus frowns, fidgeting with his wand, and then sighs. “Okay,” he mumbles. “Fine.”

He doesn’t exactly sleep easily, but Angus does sleep. He’s up early, even with his restless night, and Ren finds him at the bar in the Davy Lamp, poring over yet another ancient tax text, nibbling absently at some toast he made.

“You okay, Angus?”

“Yeah,” Angus says, looking up, determination lining his features. “Are you ready?”

Ren smiles and twirls her rod. “Course I’m ready.”

“Sheriff?”

“Yep!” Roswell chirps.

“Okay,” Angus says. “Then let’s do this.”

The three walk (or in Roswell’s case, fly) out behind the Davy Lamp, where a yawning June and a cheerful Paloma are standing by, ready to light the pyre.

“Yall ready?” June says.

“Yes.”

June lights the pyre, the wood catching instantly and roaring up. Angus stares at it, the flames reflecting in his glasses. His fingers tighten on his wand and his notes, but he doesn’t flinch.

“We’ll hold down the fort on this end,” June says.

“Good luck, Angus! Say hello to my girl for me!”

“Will do, Miss Paloma,” Angus says. “Let’s go.”

Unflinching, flanked by Ren and Roswell, Angus McDonald strides into the fire, ready to get his family back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LIKE CHILEAN MINERS
> 
> hi i know it's been almost three months but uh yeah things have kinda kicked my ass creatively speaking, but at long last here we are! not 100% sure but i think this will be the penultimate chapter!
> 
> kudos? hell yeah. comments even if it's just "you're still alive????"? also hell yeah
> 
> thanks i love you bye!

**Author's Note:**

> hey it's cha'girl, back at it again with the goof fics
> 
> full disclosure, the jokes in the beginning of this first chapter are paraphrased from this AMAZING art:  
> http://nemesisfall.tumblr.com/post/172399453356/hes-revoking-everyones-snack-privileges
> 
> comments/kudos fuel me, as always
> 
> updates whenever??? i don't fuckin know
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


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